


10-5: Runaway

by jcrowquill



Series: Spare the Angels [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Asexuality, Dean Cooks, Discussions of sexuality, Domestic Fluff, Flashbacks, Gadreel has a backbone for once, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Revenge, Teasing, jimmy novak's backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:45:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2488181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jcrowquill/pseuds/jcrowquill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While the Winchesters hunt a werewolf in Kansas, Claire Novak finally manages to get within striking range of the angel who ruined her family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to stampandsew for beta!

It was difficult to tell what age the girl at the bus station was.  Her body had taken on the mature curves of an adult, but her face remained soft; though she was slim-limbed and surprisingly graceful, her cheeks were still full and her skin luminously supple.  
  
The thing about her that wasn't young was her eyes.  Though they were bright and clear, there was a focus and intensity that wasn't normally found in a seventeen year old girl.  
  
Even so, tucked into a bulky winter coat with her blond hair back in a ponytail, she was immediately forgettable.  Pretty but not beautiful, average height, average weight.  Just a kid checking out colleges.  
  
But there was just something around her eyes and the fact that she was alone in a Baltimore bus station at night.  
  
She watched as a man chatted with a little girl, a tiny ginger who looked like she could be his daughter.  It was strange for them to be out so late as well, especially with the aura of calm, unweariness that seemed to surround the little girl.  There was something strange about them too, something around the eyes that wasn't right.  It was something older and smarter, vaguely inhuman.  Different from the other girl, but somehow similar.  
  
When they rose from the bench to leave without boarding a train, the teenager rapidly mapped out their path, narrowing it down to two possibilities.    
  
She darted ahead, staying out of sight and moving just slowly enough not to catch anyone's eye.  Within moments, the trap was set.  
  
She swore under her breath - uncreatively but effectively - when she saw that her prey had taken the other route.  It was a fifty-fifty chance, and like everything else in her life she had chosen the losing side.  Scowling, she moved ahead again, this time faster, slightly desperate, more eye catching to the random pedestrians and homeless lingering outside the station.  
  
It was alright though; she was ordinary and therefore almost invisible.  No one would remember her specifically. Just a blond kid in a cheap winter coat.  
  
The second time, she was ready and her timing was perfect.  _Always the second time,_ she thought wryly as she struck a match.  
  
The oil circle burned to life at the touch of the flaming match, just as the father and daughter crossed into its tidy confines.  
  
This was memorable.  There were few people around, but two people trapped in a flaming circle would catch attention quickly.  
  
She pulled her hood up, expertly arranging the fabric in one quick movement that blocked her face from the side.  As she strode up to the circle, she spoke quickly, harshly.  There was no quaver in her voice, but the pitch betrayed her age and her humanity.  
  
"Where is Castiel?" she demanded.  
  
The angels stared, trying to sort out what was happening and assess the danger that the situation presented to them.  They had no allegiance to Castiel, but they didn't have any life-saving information either.  
  
"You heard me," she repeated sharply, louder as though they just hadn't hear her, "Where is he?"  
  
"We don't know," the little girl answered with disturbing adult diction.  
  
"You're lying.  Tell me where he is.  I don't care if you're cute," the teen retorted, dropping her tone so that only the angels could hear her as she pulled a flask of oil from the bulky pocket of her coat, "I will douse you in oil and let you fry if you don't tell me."  
  
The man shook his head, "We don't know; he's not our ally."  
  
"Well, tell me what you do know," she said stealing a glance around.  People were congregating, some were snapping pictures on their cell phones.  She wasn't sure if anyone was calling the cops.  The thing she had on her side was the knowledge that people would always wait just a little too long for someone else to take action.  
  
Even so, she had only moments before she'd need to escape.  
  
"Now!" She repeated impatiently.  
  
"We don't know!"  the little girl said fearfully, "We're not on his side.  All we know is that he's an archangel now... and he keeps company with the Winchesters."  
  
Disappointingly, none of this was new information for her.  She's half-tempted to burn the horrible creatures up just out of frustration, but she knows better.  Not that she hadn't killed an angel or two, but not in front of an audience with cameras.  
  
“And where are the Winchesters?”  she asked impatiently.  Her time was running out.  
  
“We don’t know.  No one can find them for long.  They usually seem to disappear somewhere in Kansas.”  
  
She didn't reply.  She just pulled her hood down tighter before taking off down the street.  Maybe people thought she was crazy, or everyone was expecting someone else to step up, but no one stopped her.    
  
She had gotten bolder and bolder as time had passed, partly out of desperation and partly because she had quickly become desensitized to adrenaline and common sense.  Taking on angels didn't seem as scary anymore, neither did interrogating or exorcising demons.  She'd learned how to ask the right questions in the right ways.  
  
What scared her was failure.  She thought of her strange memories of being possessed by an angel, and she remembered how she felt afterwards -- small and alone, loving and hating Castiel for making her so big and then taking it away.  He took away her father too, and she was was terrified that it might have been forever.  
  
She had seen him on the news, being God with her father's face.  It was the first time she had hope that he was still alive.  Angels didn't bleed like that, and at one point, just for a half-second of the video footage, he'd looked so tired and so impossibly human that he thought that he had to be her father.  
  
Then she lost sight of him again.  Seeing the angels fall a few months ago -- she knew enough to know what they were -- made her realize that school wasn't important and her mother was never going to acknowledge what had happened to their family.  With the angels grounded, she'd have an easier time getting answers.  
  
She'd gotten some conflicting information over the months -- that Castiel was human, that he was leading a faction of angels.  Some things gave her hope and others made her angry.  Some angels had suffered for being the bearers of bad news; there were several gleaming silver swords in her backpack now, wrapped carefully in her clothes.  
  
The only consistent fact was that he was somehow tied to Sam and Dean Winchester.  
  
They were hard to pin down, but she would find them.  Kansas was new, she hadn’t heard that before.  She’d heard that they were hard to track, and that angels could only follow them so far before they disappeared from sight.  Not Kansas, though, that was new.  She had managed to catch several accounts of them, and she had also learned the type of case that brought the hunters running.  The only real challenge was being in the right place at the right time.  So far, she'd fallen on the wrong side of the fifty-fifty chance every time.  
  
\------------  
  
There were still many mornings when Dean woke up alone, even in the privacy of his own room.  Part of him liked sleeping alone; it was definitely better than waking up with a stranger, which was never a good idea in his line of work anyway, and there was a certain luxury to having a bed to oneself.  It could have been because he had shared a hotel bed with his brother practically till Sam left for Stanford, save nights when their father left them on their own or dropped them with Bobby in South Dakota. So anyway, having a bed to oneself was a big deal.  Normal people probably didn't think that way, but he wasn't really a normal person.  
  
This wasn't one of those mornings.  This morning Dean woke with an overly-warm, naked body pressed tightly against his back.  Without moving, he knew that it was his personal archangel, who spent the night to bang his brains out and then watch over his dreams.  He hadn't exactly invited him, but he would hardly complain when Castiel got into certain moods that involved frankly spectacular feats with his tongue.  And while he preferred to be the big spoon, he couldn't deny that there was a guilty pleasure in just letting his archangel hold him for a little while.  Besides, Cas liked it and he liked giving Cas what he liked.  _Sad world out there, give what you can, right?_  
  
 The only strange thing was knowing that the seraphim hadn't slept;  save for instances of extreme injury or following catastrophic displays of power, Castiel didn't sleep at all. It had taken some time for Dean to get used to, and a bit longer than that even to get comfortable with the fact that his nighttime companion was just creepily lying still in the dark, awake with him for hours.    
  
 It had always been that way though.  The first time they slept together, unexpectedly in a hotel room in Elkhart, Dean had slipped off to the shower immediately after to wash off the shame.  He’d slept with exactly two guys before that and he didn’t know either of their names.  He’d been drunk; that’s how he’d justified it, he was just drunk and there weren’t any hot girls at the bar.  This was different, sober.  No ready excuses.  He'd expected Cas to pop off himself to atone for his sin of the flesh (or whatever) afterwards, so he'd been surprised to find his latest and greatest mistake tucked into the blankets and settled as though he belonged there. Like any other one night stand. It caught Dean off guard; when he couldn't think of any excuse or polite post-fling code for "out" -- not exactly like he could have offered him cab money to get home -- he settled into bed beside him and was embarrassed to find himself wrapped around the fully-conscious angel in the morning.  
  
 After that he spent a lot of time trying not to think about how easily it had happened, how good it felt to sleep with someone who knew him, how Cas had felt beneath him, how sweet his sincerity seemed.  He couldn't let it become something he needed.  So instead, he'd slept with a girl from a bar shortly after to prove to himself that it was just a sex thing.  He'd been surprised at how everything felt like a comparison even though they were nothing alike. Her eyes weren't as blue as his, she was too smooth to even pretend she cared.  It was a damn good lay, but ordinary, and she'd called him by the alias he was using to avoid the FBI.  Not her fault.  But compared to an angel moaning his name like a benediction, it left him feeling unsatisfied and surprisingly dirty.  Almost like he was cheating and not even really enjoying it.  
  
 He fought hard against needing the angel, but it was too easy to kiss him when they were alone.  It felt too good to bear him down into the mattress and drag willing moans from his soft mouth, drive the air from his lungs, and then crush him close and just hold him while he caught his breath.  Every time got easier, and soon there were unspoken expectations; at some point, Dean realized that it could never have been a one-night stand because he _wanted_ it to keep happening.  He liked that Cas loved him, even if he wasn’t willing to love him back yet.  
  
 And here they were, several years later, several years closer, waking together as though they were just normal people.  Like this was a normal thing.  
  
 He turned in Castiel's arms so that they were face to face, keeping his eyes closed, and nudged him into a closed mouthed kiss.  The archangel sighed softly, smiling faintly, and cuddled close to him.    
  
"You're awake," Cas murmured obviously, his quiet monotone slightly scratchy from morning disuse.    
  
"Yeah," Dean affirmed, holding his companion in a loose, comfortable embrace as he kissed him again.  
  
 Castiel was never sure what to expect with his lover, though he had been more welcoming in the past month than ever before.  The angel liked it; he had never had any doubts about how he felt about the hunter, so he appreciated when Dean didn’t seem to have any doubts about him either.  He didn’t need a lot, and he had gotten by on much less from him, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t want mornings like this.  
  
“Should get up,” Dean added, blinking slowly and letting his eyes stay closed just a bit longer than they needed to.    
  
In the pause, Castiel kissed his neck, which immediately reminded him of the night before.  He wondered if his overzealous, avenging angel had left any marks; he was too damn old to be walking around with a hickey, especially when everyone he knew would know that it wasn’t from a busty little barfly.  He had a strange relationship with his internalized homophobia; on one hand, he was staunchly determined to present as completely, 100% red-blooded heterosexual tail-chasing, steak-eating American man.  On the other, if people already knew that he was sleeping with a dude, he wanted it known that he was having a lot of fucking amazing sex.  
  
It would have been have been so easy to just roll Cas onto his back and lazily make love to him again.  However, his sense of duty compelled him to remember that the Trans were on their way to Kabah for the first ingredient of Crowley’s Get of of Hell Free potion (do not pass Purgatory, do not collect $200). It was a bit of a commute, but it wasn’t dangerous.  Linda had made it clear that she wouldn’t have brought Kevin if it was, but as it stood it was just a matter of getting a bit of dirt from a particular grave in Mexico on a particular night under a particular phase of the moon.    
  
He and Sam had been kicking around Kansas and Oklahoma on scenic day trips, not wanting to get too far from home base in case Crowley got a good source on the next ingredient.  It had been about a week since they’d initially gotten the list, and in that time they’d only found one Bajang in the US… and another hunter had gotten to it first.  In the meantime, short hunts were simple but wearing and the increasingly frequent earthquakes put them all on edge.  
  
He sighed and repeated himself, “Yeah, should get up.”  
  
“So you said,” Castiel agreed noncommittally, not moving despite Dean’s vague insistence (if it could be called that) that they needed to get out of bed.  To the contrary, he leaned forward to press his mouth and chin to the curve of Dean’s shoulder.  
  
Dean had a secret weakness for that, just like he did for when the angel would tuck his head under his chin.  When they seemed to fit together, Dean was always loathe to break contact.  The only thing that kept him going sometimes was the knowledge that Cas was effectively playing him, and sometimes he could bolster enough manly indignation to break free.  
  
Still, the bed was warm and the man in his arms even warmer.  It was an unusually cold February, almost March, bitter cold really, and he found his mind coming up with about a million justifications for why it was completely acceptable to stay in bed for just a few minutes longer.  The room would be cold and he was naked, for one thing.  The floor was likely ice, for another. And he’d almost lost Cas just a few weeks ago.  How many mornings like this would they have?  It was probably still dark out, and Sam and Gadreel were probably still sleeping as well.  Winter was for hibernation.

 _Excuses._  
  
He huffed quietly to himself and nudged his shoulder forward, jostling Castiel lightly.  
  
“C’mon.  Time to get up.”  
  
The light nip to his shoulder caught him by surprise; even followed by an apologetic kiss, _especially_ followed by an apologetic kiss, it was a call to arms.  With a grin, he was immediately on top of the angel, pinning him down as though he could actually hold him and looking into his unnaturally bright eyes.  
  
“You picking a fight?”  
  
“Possibly,” Cas answered thoughtfully, smirking, “It depends on your definition of a fight.”  
  
“You didn’t get enough last night?”  
  
“I have been patiently waiting for you to wake up to continue.”  
  
It wasn’t an overly sexy thing to say, not by normal person standards.  But they weren’t normal people. For Castiel, it was practically pornographic, especially how he said it without even the slightest trace of shyness.  Dean blushed darkly, grinning stupidly down at him, “Jesus, fuck.”  
  
Cas briefly considered scolding him for taking the Lord’s name in vain, but it had never done him any good before.  Instead, he smiled back and leaned up to kiss Dean, this time sliding his tongue into his mouth before the hunter could protest; he knew that the world had a bigger claim on his lover, and that duty was waiting for them outside the front door, but he wasn’t ready yet to give in.  He had a secret selfish streak that was only compounded by proximity to Dean.  He’d blame it on the Righteous Man.  
  
Dean moaned quietly, unexpectedly, into his mouth and pressed closer, tightening his arms around his waist.  Sometimes it annoyed him how easily Cas could get him going.  In his heart of hearts, though, he knew that he could only blame himself; he’d taught him everything he knew, practically trained him to be his perfect match.  Of course the stupid dick could use it against him.  
  
He felt Castiel’s fingers sliding over his ribs, counting them from the bottom up before gliding over the contours of his scapulae, where his wings weren’t.  He shifted his hips involuntarily, setting his body against his in a familiar way that always led to more.  
  
 _No, no, c’mon Dean, don’t think with your dick.  Gotta get up, get outta bed.  Start the damn day.  No time for boning Cas._  
  
He could feel the angel smiling against his mouth, kissing him harder because he knew he was winning.  _Oh no, you’re not._   With some great effort, he pulled back and said, “C’mon.  Time to get up.”  
  
The angel sighed, letting his head drop back heavily against the pillow.  He knew of a half-dozen off-handed comments that would likely lead to continuation of services, but he didn’t really want to stoop to baiting him.  Though the temptation was certainly there to just innocently say “I understand if you’re too worn out” just to watch Dean bluster and re-establish his threatened masculinity.  
  
He nodded, leaning up to give Dean a quick peck on the mouth.  
  
Feeling slightly self-conscious, Dean added, “It’s not that I don’t want to.  I mean, you’re tempting the hell out of me.  It’s hot.  Just… y’know.  There’s stuff to do.  Can’t just stay in bed when other people are working hard.  You know.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
Dean slumped comfortably against him for a moment, kissing his cheeks and then mouth.  Sometimes Cas did that to him, though usually more emphatically.  Sometimes he practically assaulted him with kisses, peppered his face, neck, and shoulders, everything but his mouth, as though he was trying to individually kiss every freckle.  
  
The angel smiled and gave him a light push, “So get up.”  
  
Dean was almost disappointed that Cas was letting him go, but he sat up and stretched lazily like this was all according to plan.  He groaned a little at the cool air and pulled the blanket up around his shoulders, then sighed, “Would love for it to be May.”  
  
“It will be eventually, whether we live to see it or not.”  
  
“Thanks there, Sunshine.”  
  
He snorted and climbed out of bed, wincing at the cold on his bare limbs.  Cas sat up and watched him unsubtly, openly looking over his back and thighs with his usual interest.  Dean knew that if he hadn’t had his back to him, the angel would probably have been staring at his cock.  Bastard had no sense of decency.  
  
“So where did I go wrong?”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“What would have kept you in bed?  I need to improve my technique,” Cas asked, smiling slightly.  Dean could tell that he was amused; for him, it was practically a grin when he had that thin flash of white between his full lips.  
  
“Hmm,” Dean hummed consideringly, smiling too as he stepped into a clean pair of boxers, “Can’t say it was anything _wrong_.  Maybe… I dunno.  If you’d -- I dunno -- done that… that _moan_ thing you do.  Or pulled out your wings or something.  I dunno.”  
  
He laughed, casting his eyes down for a minute, “Why I am helping you?”  
  
When he looked back up to his companion, he saw that his sleek black wings were in full view.  Cas had leaned back slightly against the headboard, letting the blankets slip lower to reveal the sharp angles of his hips and the smoother curves of the top of his thighs.  
  
“Oh no,” he said, holding up both hands warningly, “Don’t even.  You missed your chance, you freaking nympho.  God.  Come on, Cas!  You’re killing me here.  This isn’t even fair.”  
  
“It’s 6:47am on a Saturday, Dean.  Everyone knows that your alarm doesn’t go off until seven on weekends.”  
  
Dean smiled crookedly at him, “You just won’t give up, will you?”  
  
“Not really, no,” Cas replied, glancing unnecessarily at the clock and then back to Dean.  
  
“Thirteen minutes is hardly anything.”  
  
“We’ve done it in three.”  
  
Dean chuckled at that, a couple of noteworthy quickies coming immediately to mind.  Once in a hotel room in Arkansas when Sam was in the shower, another time against the side of the Impala at the back of a grocery store parking lot at 2am.  His sense of obligation could spare him a couple minutes if it meant that he could indulge the love of his life.  Yeah, fuck it, that’s what Cas was.  
  
“Fine, fine.  But it’s not gonna be anything special.”  
  
“I will manage my expectations,” the angel informed him snootily with just a sliver of a taunting smile.    
  
The hunter’s eyebrows shot up at his tone and the correct use of a phrase that Dean had only taught him last week; that was a challenge.  For that, maybe he wouldn’t give the dickhead everything he wanted, maybe he’d just tease him to the edge for ten minutes.  Maybe he’d get him off just by fucking around with his wings and skip boning him entirely.  But it wasn’t like he wanted to deny himself either.    
  
He loped over to the bed, thumbs hooked in the elastic waist of his boxers, and looked between the clock and the bed as though he had a great deal to think about.  Finally, he leaned down and switched the alarm back on.  
  
“Twelve minutes.”  
  
“Twelve minutes,” Castiel agreed smugly.  
  
“And you’re fine with whatever?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Dean laughed, then shucked his boxers in one quick, utilitarian gesture.  He kicked them to side and leaned down to press a quick, hard kiss to Castiel’s eager mouth.  
  
It was short, though, over before Castiel was satisfied, and when he pulled back he nodded sharply, jerking his chin in the direction of the headboard.  He grinned, “Turn around. Kneel up, hands on the headboard.”  
  
The angel disentangled himself from the sheets and obediently turned away from him, setting his weight evenly on his knees as he leaned forward to give his back the perfect arch.  He knew he looked good like this -- Dean had commented on it almost every time -- and he knew that the angle let Dean push deeper, harder.  It wasn’t that Cas specifically liked rough handling, but he found that the stronger sensation resonated through his bones and vibrated against his grace.    
  
When Dean knelt up behind him, the shift of weight caused the mattress to dip, upsetting Castiel’s balance.  He spread his knees wider, closing his eyes and taking a half-second to appreciate how he could feel the weight of his unsupported testicles and the slight pull of the muscles at the insides of his thighs.  His human nerves buzzed electricity in anticipation of Dean’s hands on him, imagining his mouth against the back of his shoulder before he pushed himself into him.  
  
Dean pressed up against his back warmly, trapping his sensitive wings between their bodies.  His prick pushed against him insistently as he leaned past him to pluck the bottle of lube from its place on the bedside table.  He grinned, finding that it was still conveniently uncapped from the night before.  
  
He squeezed quite a bit into his palm, much more than he would normally take, then generously slicked his cock.  Smiling, he leaned forward to transfer the remainder of the clear gel to the insides of the angel’s thighs, then smeared it up to the cleft of his ass.  Knowing that Cas was likely taking a moment to parse what was happening, Dean lightly slapped his backside and told him huskily, “Legs together, tight.”  
  
Confused, Cas complied with his demand, making a face at the chill, slick sensation squelching between his legs.  
  
Dean laid a hand on his hip, then pushed his cock into the tight, lubricated space between his legs.  He hadn’t done this to Cas in awhile, just fucked his slippery thighs rather than penetrating his body.  
  
“Oh… _oh_ ,” the archangel breathed, realizing suddenly what Dean was doing.  He nodded to himself, shifting his body again to press his legs together more tightly.    
  
The change earned an appreciative sound from Dean, followed by an open-mouthed kiss to the side of his neck and a murmured, “Yeah, good boy.  Like that.”  
  
The hunter thrust his hips slowly at first, getting a feel for the movement.  He adjusted his angle so that his cock slid against the bottom of Castiel’s testicles, then again to angle more downward.  It felt good, almost more reminiscent of fucking a girl, but there was no way to ignore that it was a solid, lightly muscled male body in his arms.  
  
As he picked up a solid rhythm, his breathing quickened.  He moaned quietly against Castiel’s neck, pressing a kiss to his hairline before working down over the notched vertebrae in his slim neck and across the span of his shoulder.  He could feel the angel tensing in anticipation of the first real touch to his feathers.  
  
He’d explained the sensitivity once as being due to the fact that Dean was touching his actual body without the buffer of a human vessel.  It had something to do with having so little between Dean’s shiny little soul and Castiel’s grace, but the practical outcome was that with very little exertion Dean could turn him into a squirming, boneless mess.  
  
Smiling, he pressed his mouth to the juncture of shoulder and wing, where the first wisps of charcoal-gray down blended to human skin.  That simple contact drew a quavering exhalation and made Castiel tighten his grip on the headboard.  Dean grinned smugly to himself, moving upward into the solid, thicker feathers to inhale the starlight, crisp winter smell.  He let his breath out in a warm huff that permeated the down, heated and slightly wet against Castiel’s skin.  
  
“Ah…” he moaned quietly, tilting his head forward.  
  
Though Dean would have liked to have slowly taken him apart just by stroking his feathers, there wasn’t a whole lot of time at his disposal.  In counterpoint to the gentle, exploratory warmth of his breath, Dean reached up to bury his hands in his wings, tightening his fingers just shy of hard enough to pull out any of the smaller feathers.    
  
Cas cried out sharply, his back arching and pushing his backside back against Dean.  Without meaning to, he spread his legs again slightly.    
  
His lover breathed, “Nope, legs together for me babe.  C’mon…”  
  
“Mm…!” Cas hummed in agreement, pressing his legs back together obediently as he practically writhed in Dean’s hold.    
  
Dean smiled, breathless with satisfaction, and thrust harder, his cock sliding easily through the tight gap between his thighs.  He kissed the back of his neck and up into his short, damp hair, loving how his skin tasted and how his hair smelled.  He was pretty sure he’d be satisfied finishing just like this, Cas grinding back against him as he skillfully tugged and manipulated his shorter feathers.  When he got to the longer pinions, the ones that were wired in directly to his grace, he was pretty sure that he could make him shout.  
  
He couldn’t see the clock from this angle, but knew that their time was ticking down quickly.  Moaning quietly himself, he pulled Cas back enough to pull his hands from the headboard and pushed him down to the pillows, folded neatly at the waist.  Dean wrapped his body over his, pressing flush against him and grinding on his backside, sliding his cock in the slick, wet cleft of his ass without penetrating him.  Cas moaned wantonly, pushing back against him and trying to change the angle; having Dean’s cock pressing and sliding against him again and again, catching on the rim, was too much.  
  
“Ah, Dean….” he breathed before pushing his face into the pillow, “Please…”  
  
Dean wanted to tell him to manage his expectations, but he was on edge and knew that his own husky moan wouldn’t give the right zing to the words.  He wasn’t going to give it to him, he wasn’t even going to touch his cock.  He’d get him off, but he’d get him off like an angel.  
  
“Please!” Castiel moaned again.  
  
It was very hard to say no to, especially when he knew exactly what it would feel like to slip into that tight, eager heat.  Instead, he gripped his wings again and jerked him back, making him cry out again.  The sound struck sparks on Dean’s soul, making him want him in every way possible; at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to turn him onto his back and look him in the face as he pushed himself into him.  He wanted to watch his eyes widen as he took him in, his soft lips part as he gasped in a gulp of air that he didn’t need.  He wanted to consume the man beneath him, kiss him and taste the need in his breathless, broken voice.  
  
His fingers skated up the back of his wing to the longest of his primary feathers.  He skimmed his nails up against the barbs of the feather, feeling the hard calamus running the length.  In a bird it might have been filled with blood if it was a new feather, but he knew that the archangel’s grace glowed unseen through the center of the inky black, oil-slick feathers.    
  
“Oh… Dean… _Dean_!”  Cas cried, pushing back against him eagerly, uncertain as to whether he wanted to satisfy his mortal body or beg for more of whatever Dean was doing to his wings.  His body felt simultaneously hypersensitive and almost numb as he jerked and quivered in Dean’s hold.  
  
The hunter tugged lightly at the second feather, not hard enough to hurt but enough to get his attention.  He could feel that Castiel was on edge and it would take little more to get him off; and once Cas came, it was all over for him as well.  Cas was not good at keeping his pleasure confined to his own body.    
  
The alarm clock buzzed, startling both of them, but they ignored it as Dean continued to grind and thrust against him, pulling and stroking his feathers.  Cas was making almost continuous sound, the way he only did when Dean was touching his wings as well, rewarding his ministrations with gasps, quiet moans, half-keening shouts, and ragged, thready breathing.  It was exactly what Dean liked best, the perfect soundtrack to fucking a million year old archangel, and it was quickly drawing him close.  
  
The right skip of Dean’s fingers across his flight feathers was all it took -- Dean would never say so, but sometimes he played guitar chords on the angel’s wing; the riff from Stairway did it every time -- Cas cried out again, just shy of a scream, as he came with a brilliant flash of light that washed over his skin like flame racing across gasoline.  
  
Dean knew enough to close his eyes, though he barely thought about it as some version of the angel’s rapture flooded his body, pushing him well past the limits of his endurance.  He came hard, hips bucking as he spilled over the insides of Castiel’s thighs and across his ass.  He slumped against him unwillingly, spent and dimly aware that the alarm was still buzzing away in the background.    
“Shit,” he breathed, his Kansas accent coming through more clearly than usual on the extended vowel.    
  
Cas made a muffled sound of agreement from where he was clumsily pressed into pillows.  He lifted his head groggily and made a vague gesture that either turned the alarm off or permanently fried its circuits.  At the moment, he didn’t really care which.  
  
Finally, Dean managed to move enough to flop to his side and drag the sticky, slimy angel into his arms.  He liked him messy, though only for a little while, then it was time for a shower.  Couldn’t be gay about it.  Cas went without resistance, only just barely tucking his limp wings up close to his body for long enough not to crush any feathers.  He was breathing quickly, despite that his human body didn’t actually need oxygen, and Dean was proud to observe fine tremors running the length of his lover’s limbs.  He smiled to himself, holding the limp angel tightly.  
  
“Good?”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
“Met your expectations?” he prodded.  
  
“Exceeded,” Cas breathed, turning to kiss him.  
  
Dean smiled, realizing that at that moment, he was happy.  Even if he was afraid of Hell and of  himself, and even if the world was probably going to end soon, this moment was a happy one.  A “spot of time,” like he’d read in a Wordsworth poem when he was in eleventh grade.  He wasn’t literary -- Sam was the smart one -- but the idea had stuck with him.  So he tucked this feeling away for himself, cast about for something small that he could use to anchor it in his memory.  The feeling of the spent angel sagging in his arms, his quick breath warm and slowing to rest at his shoulder.  The brush of his feathers against the inside of his arm.  The smell of his hair and skin, all sky with only the barest trace of humanity.    
  
He could feel that there was a small, fine wisp of down stuck between his fingers.  Later, he would tuck it in his wallet along with that phonetic thing he’d written down once, when Cas had told him how to say ‘I love you too’ in Enochian.  Along with the twenty year old stub from picking up his dad’s leather jacket at the tailor, after John had let him wear it on a hunt and it had gotten cut.  When Dean had gotten cut.  When his dad had actually hugged him and rubbed his arm and told him he’d done good, and they just needed to get him stitched up and he’d be fine.  When his dad was proud of him and all three of them were together.  Along with half of a movie ticket from when he’d taken Sam to see The Lion King for the eight millionth time, the first time his baby brother didn’t get teary at Mufasa’s death.  Along with the scrap of wallpaper he’d stolen from his parents’ old house in Lawrence nine years ago when they’d put the ghost of their mother to rest.  
  
All these little things, reminders of all of these big things, these moments that he tucked away for himself in his secret heart that possibly only Castiel had seen. The bottle cap that rattled around the bottom of his duffel bag, from the beer he half-drank the night he and Cas first had sex.  He’d wanted to remember because it was the first time in awhile that he’d felt like he could let someone new into his life.  He’d been ashamed of what they’d done, but not that it was Cas.  Never that it was Cas.  He kissed the angel’s forehead surprisingly sweetly, then his mouth.  
  
“I aim to please.  Now we should really get up.”  
  
  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
Jimmy Novak hadn't been from a religious family.  To the contrary, his parents were extremely secular, astonishingly ordinary middle class workers.  His mother had pulled herself up out of a dirt-poor trailer trash household in the Midwest.  She was the first girl in her family to go to college and she hadn’t graduated, but she met a good solid man who had; together they had Jimmy and together they had just enough.  
  
His parents weren't religious, didn't get it at all, and scoffed at the weekend preachers on the radio.  “God the father,” his father would laugh, and then his mother would croon the lyrics of Janis Joplin’s _Mercedes Benz._   It didn’t matter because there was no reference point, save for the other kids at school.  But he always felt slightly different than them anyway, on account of his hand-me-down clothes and his unmarried parents.    
  
 _Why are you Novak like your dad and not Boroweic like your mom?  Do you love your dad more?_   _Why aren't they married?  Don't they love each other?_  
  
When he was seven, he didn’t know the sorts of things that he should be scared of.  It was 1981 and no one really talked about the kind of people who did bad things to children.  “Don’t talk to strangers” his mother said, but sometimes that warred with other social rules that he was expected to follow.  So when someone called him over to ask for directions, he blithely trotted over to the car.  When the man pushed him into the back seat, he thought that maybe he was just going to help him get where he was going.    
  
It wasn’t until the car turned the other way, opposite his directions, and began to pick up speed that he got scared.  He wasn’t scared for the reasons that he should have been; he was scared because he was getting further from home, further from his family, and it would be a long way to walk.  His father would be angry if he had to waste gas to come to pick him up; gas was $1.30 per gallon, and his dad complained all the time that he’d never seen it cost so much.  
  
He began to cry.  
  
There was an incredible ringing sound, like a million radios screaming the loudest static that the child had ever heard.  It should have hurt his ears, but it didn’t.  It hurt the man in the front seat, who doubled over, pressing his hands to his ears.  It was so loud and so sharp that the window shattered and all of the mirrors, all of the glass, fell like a clattering rain, letting all of the sudden wind into the car.  A bottle of Coke that was lying on the back seat, the one that the man had told him he could drink if he wanted, broke and spilled, fizzing across the naughahyde seating.  
  
He felt like he could hear words in the sound, which was somehow more beautiful than scary, almost like very loud bells, or the sound stars made when they twinkled in cartoons.  The words were angry, but not at him.  They said _You let that boy go.  You’ve scared him!  You **do not** touch him.  You do **not** touch him!  You stop that car and let him go.  I am an angel of the Lord and I command it._  
  
That man in the front was very scared, and that made Jimmy feel less scared.  He pulled his car with its broken windows to the side of the road and got out, then dragged the boy out by his upper arm and gave him a hard shove.  He stumbled and fell, scraping his summer-bare knees on the pavement.  
  
His would-be kidnapper climbed back into car and took off.  It was the first time that Jimmy had heard tires squeal like in a movie.  Sitting on the pavement beside the road, not certain where he was, he stared down at his skinned knees and willed himself not to cry.  He was too old to cry about that.  Only girls and little kids cried when they hurt themselves.  
  
He heard that rattling, chiming sound again.  It wasn’t angry, though it was still loud.  He could hear it vibrating through the street sign and the lamp post.  This time it said _Are you all right?  I’m here._  
  
It had an obvious strength, but also a sort of awkwardness that he didn’t expect from something so big-sounding.  It was like it didn’t know how to make him like it, but wanted to try.  Kind of like how he felt sometimes at school, when he wanted to make friends but didn’t know the words that would make other kids think he was cool.    
  
“I don’t know where I am,” he said aloud, his expressive, piping voice quivering.  
  
 _Don’t be afraid._  
  
“I’m not afraid,” Jimmy protested with soft, proud vehemence that wasn’t very convincing.  
  
 _You’re very brave.  Let me help you._  
  
The sting of abraded skin on his knees suddenly intensified, instantly bringing tears to Jimmy’s eyes.  He gasped and gripped his knees, wrapping his skinny palms across the cuts as though to shield them.  It burned for just a fraction of a second, then faded to nothing.    
  
He sniffled hard, dragging the snot back into his nose and making him cough pathetically.  He cautiously pulled his hands back and looked at his knees, half-expecting them to be missing entirely like something out of a scary movie, and was startled to see that the skin was healed smooth under the thin smears of blood.  
  
“Wow,” he gasped.  
  
Glancing over, he saw a twenty dollar bill wedged into the corner of the drainage grate.  That was an awful lot of money, just sitting there.  With that and the dime in his pocket, he could call his dad to come pick him up.  His dad wouldn’t be mad if he could pay for gas, and there was a payphone down at the convenience store on the corner.  With $20, there would actually be leftover; maybe his dad would be happy.  
  
It would be okay.  
  
“Thank you,” he said out loud, but no one said anything back.  
  
It took awhile for his father to pick him up.  When he arrived he told him succinctly that there was a major car accident a few miles up, but he didn’t give any details because it was too scary for kids to hear about.  He didn’t ask what Jimmy had been doing so far from home, but the boy readily volunteered all of the information except the loud, powerful voice that broke the windows.  He knew his father would say it was his imagination, and sometimes his imagination made his dad angry.  He didn’t understand why his father went pale and staring just then, or why he was gripping the steering wheel so tightly, but he wasn’t angry.  He wasn’t in trouble at all, and that was all Jimmy cared about at the time.  
  
He mostly forgot about what had happened, the scary parts, and all of the details slipped away except for the voice.  He tried hard to remember, pressing his childish mind to recall the words over and over.  I am an angel of the lord and I command you. Something in the words changed him.  
  
When he asked to start going to church, his parents let him.  They didn’t accompany him, still lacking faith, but they didn’t mock him.  He walked down the street to the church next to his school by himself, and after the sermon he turned and walked back.    
  
It wasn’t until several years later, when he was entering high school, that he understood what the angel had saved him from, and how his life might have ended very badly that afternoon.  He was already devoted to the church, fallen in love with faith from the first time he’d heard the angel’s voice, but he became more pious, more faithful.  He had a guardian angel who had saved him in a tangible way.  He had something that most people did not; it made him different.  It made him feel as though the sense of not-fitting, not-same that he had always felt was a good thing; there was a reason for everything.  God had a plan for everything and he would be saved.  
  
He spoke to his angel often without knowing his name.  It wasn’t praying exactly so much as a quiet, one-sided conversation, almost like he was just talking in his head to another version of himself.  The angel never talked back, but he was certain that he was listening. He wouldn’t have just left, not when they knew each other already.  
  
He would just become a better man, the kind of person that he angel would want to know.  


	2. Chapter 2

When Dean and Cas emerged about a half-hour later, both were struck again by how much quieter the bunker seemed.  It wasn’t that anyone was normally particularly loud, but Dean had gotten used to having nine or ten people kicking around their home base.  They were down by three from a week ago; the Trans were traveling, and Charlie had finally had the opportunity to tell Dean a day or so ago that Dorothy had gone back to Oz.  
  
That had been an awkward conversation, largely because it wasn’t what Dean had expected; it wasn’t a break-up.  Dorothy and Charlie had never really been the item that they had all assumed that they were.  Their strong personalities gave them a certain magnetism but ultimately made them incompatible.  Dorothy hadn’t taken it well when Charlie essentially friendzoned her (“Dean, that’s a shitty phrase and a shitty concept,” Charlie had told him irritably), and had brusquely informed her that this hadn’t been her home for a long time.  On somewhat shaky terms, they’d parted ways.  
  
Dean thought that it explained a lot about their recent tension, tension he had ascribed to “girl stuff” and close proximity with other people after months in the wilds of Oz.  He had wrongly assumed that it was something like the culture shock that he had suffered after his jailbreak from purgatory, when everyone’s voices seemed too loud and all of the beds seemed too soft.  
  
In any case, the bunker was quieter now, even though Dorothy and the Trans had hardly been “loud” tenants.  Allison had the good sense to keep to herself, primarily trying to tag along after Gadreel if she talked to anyone at all.  Gadreel was having none of it, but it didn't stop her from trying.  Castiel had questioned her and found that she knew little about Arakiel beyond what the angel had said aloud to her.    
  
The archangel didn’t fully understand her desire to be the ancient angel’s vessel or her offense at being left behind.  His own vessel, the one that he wore now, had been relieved to be released the first time.  That was the first time that Castiel had occupied a human body for more than a few hours and he hadn’t known how to be gentle.  He learned, but not before dragging Jimmy Novak uncomfortably across the galaxy for months.  
  
He didn’t usually think about his vessel anymore, not as something separate from himself.  The smooth, squarish fingers had become his own;  the blue eyes, made bluer by his grace, were his.  He was still a powerful, inhuman creature tucked and folded into an impossibly small human shell, but he had come to see the lightly lined face as a reflection of one of his own.   
  
They followed the burned bean aroma of brewing coffee to its source in the kitchen, where they found Gadreel leaning against the kitchen counter while Sam skimmed the news on his laptop.  
  
“Hey, good morning,” Sam said, acknowledging them with a nod and a slight smile.  He almost always smiled when he saw Dean in the morning; even after so long, being together almost constantly, he was still happy to see him.    
  
Dean glanced between Sam and Gadreel, then Gadreel and his own angel.  Even now, he still saw some superficial similarities between them, though he would always weigh the differences in his lover’s favor.  He was slightly surprised to find that Castiel was as calm and strangely stately as ever; he certainly didn’t look like he’d been begging to be fucked a half an hour ago.  Part of Dean was offended, but the rational part was relieved and vaguely impressed.    
  
“Hey, yeah.  How’d you both sleep?” Dean asked.  
  
“Pretty well.  Coulda slept longer, but I figured that there was probably something waiting to get done.  I haven’t seen Crowley yet this morning.”  
  
“Mm,” Dean murmured in acknowledgement as he leaned past Gadreel to pour himself a cup of coffee, “Anything we need to do this morning?  Charlie’s app pick up anything registering on the freak-o-meter?”  
  
“Eh, two things local-ish.  I just checked out one in the news and police reports and I don’t think it’s anything.  The other one, though… it sounds pretty legit.  Could be a werewolf.”  
  
“Yeah?  What’s it got?”  
  
“Couple cattle mutilations and two people with their hearts ripped out,” Sam replied mildly, sipping his own coffee.  This was normal breakfast conversation.  Gadreel, watching him, looked down into his own cup, took a sip as well, then made a face; he still didn’t care for the flavor, even with the liberal dosing of cream and sugar he added to make it tolerable, but he couldn’t deny the medicinal benefits of caffeine.  
  
“Sounds promising.  Where is it?”  
  
“Colby.  It’s probably like two hours away.”  
  
“Cool, okay.  When you want to head out?”  Dean asked, rounding about to check the fridge for the makings of some kind of hearty breakfast.    
  
He wouldn’t lie; he liked to cook.  It wasn’t like he wanted to make frilly birthday cakes or souffles or any of that fancy Gordon Ramsay shit, but he did like eating stuff that tasted like more than salt and thickener.  That was something he’d gotten from Bobby rather than his father; while John was content to eat soup directly out of a can (and Dean was proud to emulate him), Bobby insisted on cooking food using recognizable ingredients when they weren’t on the road.  His logic was that real men were self-sufficient, and that meant being able to “cook for their damn selves and _do their own stinking laundry_.”    
  
To that end, Bobby taught him how to make a couple of basic standards, meals that he could easily prepare for himself and Sam, as well as one “fancy” meal that he could pull out to impress a girl if needed.  Living with Lisa had only expanded the repertoire of normal, day-to-day things that he could accomplish.  He could grill, he could make cinnamon rolls from a fridge roll taste almost like homemade, he could rewire a light switch, he could give a good back rub.  All that stuff.  Normal stuff.  
  
And at the moment, the normal thing that he wanted was pancakes.  Nothing fancy, not like he was going to make them from scratch. Just Bisquick, or whatever the store brand had been.  Real maple syrup, not that high fructose shit that they’d grown up on at cheap southern diners.  Bacon would be good too, and he was pleased to see that there was a full pound of it tucked in the back of the ancient, rattling refrigerator.  
  
He dragged those out and put them on the counter, then glanced over at Sam, who seemed to be more interested in watching him than in answering his question.  He smirked, “Dude, when are we going?”  
  
“Ah, after breakfast, I guess!”  his brother laughed, knowing that his interest in Dean’s cooking was fairly transparent.  He would probably put up some resistance to the bacon on account of its hefty fat content, but he realistically knew that they would need the slow-burning energy and were more than active enough to make up for any caloric intake that Dean could serve up.  
  
Dean snorted, grinning as he slit the side of the plastic packaging with a knife.  
  
“Hungry?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam replied sheepishly.  
  
“Y’know, you could always have started something yourself.  And there’s like 10 boxes of cereal in the pantry.  Even some of those bark and twig types you like.”  
  
He wasn’t fishing for compliments exactly, but he liked to hear that Sam appreciated him; he wanted to hear that this was better.  He liked providing for his baby brother, even though his brother was completely able to take care of himself.  Feeding people always felt good, kind of the way hunting sometimes felt good.  And getting a little ego stroking didn’t hurt for motivation.  
  
“Yeah… eh,” the younger Winchester laughed, shrugging one shoulder.  
  
Gadreel watched with interest as Dean preheated the oven, then expertly fitted a sheet of aluminium foil to a baking sheet.  With that accomplished, he placed a wire cooling rack on top of that, then started to carefully lay the bacon across the thin frame using just his first two fingers to minimize mess.  
  
Noting his curiosity, Dean glanced at Gadreel.  He still didn't feel entirely comfortable when the former angel watched him, largely because he didn't know what the blond was thinking; he always felt as though Gadreel's time wearing him around gave him some insight into his actions.  Even when he was doing something incredibly banal with no underlying meaning, he felt defensive.  
  
"Here, may as well help," Dean said, pushing the remainder of the packet into Gadreel's hands, "You do the other pan, I'll cut potatoes."  
  
He watched out of the corner of his eye as Gadreel repeated what Dean had done a moment before, obviously disliking the thick, oily fat that transferred itself to his fingers.  He was a man about it, but the slight scrunch of his nose gave him away.  
  
And the quick glances he stole at Dean seeking approval also betrayed the fact that he was only then learning the method; he was not privy to the memory of Lisa finding the method on Pinterest and the two of them trying it out together one weekend morning while Ben cheerfully burned toast black in their psychotic toaster.  
  
Dean relaxed slightly.    
  
Within a few minutes, the bacon was in the oven and Dean had a skillet of diced potatoes sizzling away.  Shortly after that, the remainder of the household began to trickle in, and Dean added more mix to the bowl of pancake batter to accommodate the full kitchen.  
  
Even with Arakiel's moping vessel and the former king of hell taking up a seat at the small kitchen table, it felt good.  Not like Dean wanted to start scrapbooking the memories or anything, but he couldn't help but feel that this was another good thing and the day was off to an unusually auspicious start.  
  
"So, we got a werewolf hunt today, great stuff.  We got any new leads on the vamp-kitty we gotta skin?"  
  
"Not yet, no," Crowley replied, shaking his head before taking a long, too-hot swallow of his coffee.  He looked between Dean and his impromptu sous-chef absently, wondering if this was some sort of male bonding; maybe the hunter was finally trying to get over his hangups and accept his eventual brother-in-law.   
  
“I’m going to scrye after breakfast and see what I can find.  It would be much easier to find one in Europe, if you were willing to fly,” the former demon added, gesturing with his mug.  
  
“There’s Bajang in the US.  It’s the frickin’ melting pot,” Dean huffed.  
  
“You know, though, we could easily just hop a flight to Eastern Europe and grab one,” Sam pointed out.  
  
“That is an 8 hour flight.  Like 8 hours, solid, in the air,” the elder Winchester glanced at Cas, frowning slightly, “Too bad the whole things’ gotta be done by ‘the hand of man.’  I’d way rather just make you errand angel.”  
  
The archangel shrugged eloquently.  
  
“But hey, no problem, man.  We’ll find one,” Dean said with a nod, “And y’know, if not soon, well, fuck, Sam and I will haul ass to Europe.  Give it another day or two and book a ticket, if Crowley can find one there instead.”  
  
He switched off the gas to the burner, then said, “So yeah, who’s hungry?”  
  
Breakfast was cheerful, even with some of the uneasy alliances.  Dean refused to do dishes; he figured that if he cooked, someone else cleaned.  That was just fair, that was how it went.  He wasn’t the freaking maid.  That’s how it’d been with Lisa, whoever didn’t cook was on dish duty.  He didn’t know why he kept finding his thoughts returning to Lisa this morning.  Must have been something about domesticity.  It certainly wasn’t because Cas had left him wanting for, well, anything.  
  
Back in his room, he stole a glance at the angel while he finished packing up his bag for travel.  
  
“I’ll call you tonight when we’re settled in, okay?”   
  
Castiel nodded, his bright eyes almost tiredly following the movements of Dean’s hands and watching the muscles move under the sleeves of his shirt.  He wasn’t physically weary, but his mind felt full of the universe and his heart felt weighted by the expectations of the days to come.  There was a tangible fatigue to the quality of his movements, a heavy stillness that the hunter could perceive easily but wasn’t sure how to address.  
  
Dean was always anxious about something -- it was his default state -- but he felt reasonably content with how the morning was progressing.  He knew it would be easier to just give the angel a kiss and send him on his way, but he was trying not to be that guy.  That guy who just let the people around him suffer on their own because it was awkward to get into the emotional stuff.  
  
“Somethin’ up?” he asked as he zipped the bag.  
  
His lover’s brilliant blue gaze was on him again, this time more intently.  Cas blinked at him thoughtfully, then shook his head.  
  
“No, nothing new.”  
  
Dean knew then that it was just more of the same, stuff they’d talked about already.  Cas being afraid of being the only archangel, not wanting to kill his fallen siblings in Hell, being scared of being culpable for the world in a way that Dean could only understand in abstract.  Even though the angel had been augmented by his creator, he was still just an angel; problems of this magnitude needed the hand of a God who was still largely absent.  
  
He cleared his throat, then walked over to lay a hand on his shoulder in a manly, reassuring way.  
  
“We got this, Cas.”  
  
Cas lifted his hand to lay it on top of Dean’s, immediately dispelling any machismo in Dean’s gesture, then leaned up to kiss him.  It was sweet, without underlying intent, and Dean was surprised by how easily he could read the angel’s adoration in the touch.  The simplicity of it caught him off guard, and he pulled back just a little too quickly.  
  
It still scared him to love the angel, and to love him so much.  _Too much._  
  
He smiled, all charm and a little bit of teeth, giving Castiel’s shoulder a little squeeze.    
  
“C’mon, I gotta get on the road.  Figure Sammy and I can get this thing taken care of by tomorrow morning, maybe tonight.  Either way, got a motel stay tonight, maybe you can pop in and watch a movie with us or something.  You know, hang out, prop your feet up, stretch your wings.”  
  
He was suddenly struck by the extremely domestic image of sitting on a crappy motel bed with Cas draped across his lap.  He’d drink the beer he had in one hand while scritching his angel’s feathers with the other, and Sam would be parked on the other bed with his laptop perched on his legs, Skyping with Gadreel.    
  
The thought only stuck in his head for a half-second, but it was saccharine enough that he felt he needed to reel it in and squash it down.  What the fuck was with this chick flick nonsense?  It wasn’t like he wanted a normal life.  A normal gay life with his supernatural boyfriend and his brother living nearby.  _What the fuck, Dean.  Really.  C’mon, you’ve never really wanted anything but a hunter’s life._  
  
Still, standing an arm’s length away from his disheveled, unshaven angel gave him weird thoughts.  He briefly entertained kissing him again and maybe telling him that he loved him, but instead he dropped his hand awkwardly to his side, then shoved it into his pocket.  
  
“I’ll come when you call if I am able,” Cas acknowledged.  
  
“Yeah, cool.  I’ll see you tonight then, right.”  
  
He was surprised by how much he didn’t want Cas to go, and he was tempted to bring his companion along.  However, the “if I’m able” implied that Castiel had angelic business that required his attention; more, he couldn’t yield to that kind of thinking.  Having Cas along when he wasn’t strictly required was a serious indulgence.  
  
Cas walked with him down to the garage, where they met Sam and Gadreel.  Cas watched with carefully controlled jealousy as the younger Winchester kissed his lover goodbye, then accepted a wave and a smile from Dean, telling himself that it meant the same thing, as the hunter climbed into his car.    
  
The drive was quiet, but not brooding.  Both brothers were stressed by the situation, but that was just background sound for the universe at this point. The white noise of anxiety.  Neither could really even remember a time that they weren’t distantly or acutely concerned about the end of life on Earth.  With the casual constancy of impending death looming in the background, it became easy to go on with normal life.  And really, the Winchesters were both in a pretty good mood this morning.  
  
Sam played with his phone for a bit, then glanced at his brother.  Dean had a slight, barely noticeable upward curve at the corners of his mouth that usually meant that he was in a subtly good mood.  
  
“So,” Sam started, “Got a question.”  
  
Dean could tell by the forced-casual delivery of that statement that it was a question that he probably didn’t want to answer about a topic that he didn’t really want to discuss.  Still, if the topic was The Topic that he had told Sam he could talk to him about at any time, he hardly had a choice.  
  
He nodded slowly, cutting a quick glance in Sam’s direction to acknowledge that he was listening.  When Sam didn’t immediately launch into his probably-embarrassing question, Dean cleared his throat and answered, “Yeah?”  
  
Sam was quiet again as though mounting the resolve to say what he was going to.  The pause wasn’t long, but it was enough to make Dean’s heart beat uncomfortably hard.  
  
“So, ah, I almost slept with Gadreel a couple days ago.”  
  
Dean nodded slowly, silently wanting to jump out of the car.    
  
“Okay… so what’s the question?”  
  
Sam was surprised and not surprised that Dean didn’t ask for details, or even ask a basic “What stopped you?”  He hadn’t actually thought that his brother would step up to the plate for this one, but he had thought that he would make a face or say something disparaging.  Maybe something just out of morbid curiosity or knee-jerk reflex.  But without the opportunity to hem and haw and beat his way around the bush, he wasn’t sure how to actually ask his question.  
  
He was silent for a moment before he managed to get up the nerve to say, "He said no."  
  
That surprised Dean, who had assumed that Sam had just been too straight to bone another dude.   
  
"Really?  He realize he's straight or something?" he asked almost unwillingly, compelled more by curiosity than anything.  
  
"No," Sam said, feeling his face get warm, "He said it was too fast and he knew I'd freak out."  
  
"Huh," Dean acknowledged.  
  
"He's kinda right."  
  
"Right you'd freak out?" Dean asked disbelievingly.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"What's there to freak out about, getting laid?"  
  
"I'm straight, Dean.  I don't just look at guys and think 'man I'd totally hit that.'  I like girls.  I mean, like I had a phase in college where I thought y'know _maybe I'll try this out_.  But I'm not gay."  
  
"You know you can like dudes and chicks at the same time, right?  It don't make you gay, Sammy," his brother said a bit defensively.  
  
Realizing he'd touched a nerve relating to Dean's masculinity, Sam backed off that line of discussion.  He felt like he was always touching that particular nerve, and as tedious as it could be he needed to work within the narrow confines of his brother’s comfort zone if they were going to have this conversation.   
  
"Yeah, I know.  I could be bi or something.  But I'm not, I only want to do girls.  I just... I just love Gadreel."  
  
Dean wanted to challenge him on that point, ask him what difference his body made if he loved him, but his own thoughts were too disorganized for a ready quip.  He had never identified himself as anything other than "straight with exceptions."  The drunk exception, the Cas exception.  It wasn't strictly true given that he had a consistent but forcefully ignored attraction to men, but he didn't want to say the word "bisexual" even in his head.  Bisexual was for college girls who were going through a phase and for gay guys who were still pretending.  Instead he made justifications, like that he just viewed bodies as secondary after all the ghostly and spiritual shit they'd gone through; if he was attracted to a personality, then the body was just something that came along for a pleasurable ride.  Men could feel good, just like women; Cas gasping his name was as hot as any chick could ever be because it was Cas.  
  
He wasn't prepared for that argument, but he felt like saying something.  
  
"And you gotta fuck him if you love him?" Dean challenged instead, "Look, man, if you don't wanna bone him, then don't. No ones gonna make you and it's nobody's fucking business anyway."  
  
Sam was surprised by Dean's sudden vehemence, as much as he was surprised again that Dean didn't think sex was crucial.  He looked at his slightly red-faced sibling, trying to figure out if there was something to this or if Dean just had a really strong opinion.  Did he not want him to sleep with Gadreel or something?  
  
Dean must have been rerunning the conversation through his head, because he came around on a point that didn't make sense to him.  
  
"And anyway, if you're so damn straight how come he's the one who shut it down?"  
  
Sam sighed, wishing he hadn't even brought it up, "I was just really -- I dunno -- in the moment.  Like we were just... y'know, fooling around and it seemed like a good idea."  
  
Dean nodded, resettling his hands on the wheel restlessly.  He chewed the inside of his cheek, something he did sometimes to physically prevent himself from saying the first thing to cross his mind.  In this case, the first thing was a completely hypocritical tirade.  
  
He bit that back with some great effort, then nodded as though to congratulate himself for being a level-headed adult.  
  
"Y'know, sometimes it's okay to just do things because they're good at the time.  We don't know how much time we've got.  I mean, if you're both into it... so you freak out a bit after. Y'dp that and then "  
  
Sam blinked slowly, suddenly forming a clear and unknowingly accurate picture of the early days of his brother's relationship.  Dean had just gone into it, dove right in because he needed it, and then clumsily figured the details out afterwards.  Dean's fluctuations in behavior over the first year or two of Castiel's continued presence in their lives suddenly made a lot more sense.  
  
"That how it went with you and Cas?"  
  
The flush that had been dying down burned brightly again in Dean's cheeks.    
  
"Yeah.  Something like that."  
  
Sam nodded to himself, trying to get up the nerve to ask the next question.  He knew that if they had been talking about a girl, Dean would have been burning his ears with the red hot details of that hookup.  However, it wasn't the case with Cas; in the only situation where a bit of lurid storytelling might have actually helped him, Dean was consistently tight-lipped.  
  
"Was it... I dunno... was it awful?  Awkward?  I mean... I've heard it's ah, something you need to kinda…” he finished rather lamely, “...do a certain way..."  
  
Dean half-wondered if this was some nightmare.  He didn't think it was, but he started subtly resorting to some of his emergency wake-up tricks.  
  
"It was fine.  Good.  Awkward because Cas had like no idea, but it worked out, obviously," he huffed, red right up to the roots of his dark blond hair.    
  
Sam wondered then about the whole consent thing that had been bothering him with Gadreel, that question of whether or not his lover had the comprehension or social independence to really agree to anything.  The idea that Cas “had no idea” made him a little uncomfortable, but there was also the simple fact that the angel was millions of years old and was more than capable of making up his mind; Cas would never have felt pressured by reliance on Dean to yield up his body to him.  By contrast, he sometimes felt that there was a power imbalance in his relationship with Gadreel.  
  
Still, Cas’ inexperience hadn’t been a deal breaker, and the two had continued on to something almost resembling a normal relationship.   
  
Dean glanced over at him, "Geez, man.  Go online and research the how-to's if you're worried about screwing up. Watch some porn.  I mean come on, man up.  You're like Captain Research."  
  
Sam was less worried about the mechanics - what he wanted more was just to hear that it would work out and everything would be fine.  That he had any right to be touching the blond at all.  However, that was the one thing that Dean was managing to say pretty clearly despite all of his clumsy blustering; sleeping with Gadreel was okay.    
  
"Yeah," he said in the awkward silence that followed.  
  
"God, why'd that asshole have to come back as a dude?"  
  
Sam felt a defensive twinge on Gadreel's part, and not because Dean had just called him an asshole. Dean calling anyone an asshole or a dick was hardly worth noting; it was practically a pet name.  Instead, Sam was distantly offended by the judgment on Gadreel's physical form; his strong, tall frame and angular, earnest face had become surprisingly dear to him. Memories of the angel were being replaced by the man he'd become, a man whom Sam was learning to love more every day.  
  
Dean sucked in an audible breath and blew it out through his nose.  
  
"Why'd'you alway do this when we're trapped in a car together?"  
  
"Answer's in the question, dude," Sam answered, relaxing slightly and laughing at his brother's lingering discomfort. To his relief, Dean laughed too.  
  
Things settled out after that; the red ember-like glow of embarrassment gradually faded from Dean's cheeks and they resumed normal conversation that had nothing to do with either of the promoted or demoted angels in their lives.  
  
It was a short drive compared to what they were used to, and they were almost surprised when they passed the sign welcoming them to Colby.  It looked about the same as Lebanon -- just another small town tucked into the southern wilds -- but had the distinction of not being home.   
  
"This isn't fresh enough to make a crime scene visit worth anything.  You wanna start with the morgue?" Dean asked, glancing briefly at the GPS.  They'd only entered a town name, so if they kept following the directions they would eventually hit the city center.  
  
"Yeah.  Seem's pretty cut and dry, y'know?  Do this, get it done, head home."  
  
Neither would say it, but both would rather be back home at the bunker by the next day; the only way that they could take on so many unrelated hunts while they were working on the overarching problem was if they kept it simple.  Simple meant no complications, no mistakes, no attachments.  These were the one night stands of hunting.  
  
\---  
  
Jimmy grew up.    
  
He worked hard enough in school to earn a small scholarship to a state school.  It was nothing glamorous, but by working part time at the local grocery store, he could get by, even tithing away 10% of his meager income to his church.  
  
People who met him immediately noticed a particular vitality to him, a calm, sparkling energy that came from his complete trust in his faith.  Though he wasn’t proud or cocky, he always knew that someone would catch him if he fell.  This confidence was tempered by a secret loneliness, and the combination gave him an earnest sweetness that simultaneously left strangers feeling both charmed and awkward.  While most people intuitively liked him, there was something in him, a quiet secrecy, that left him with few close friends.  
  
He didn’t choose a grand path for himself.  He studied accounting because he had a natural aptitude for numbers but lacked the head for science.  He loved it all, though, math and science, and found them quietly beautiful.  “Mathematics is the language of god,” he would say with a laugh, “You can’t believe in math or science without believing in god.”  
  
It was the opposite of how a lot of people thought of the whole thing.  A lot of people thought that love of science and belief in god were mutually exclusive, but Jimmy could only see the perfection of numbers and the interlocking puzzle pieces of science as demonstrating a greater design.  He didn’t quite believe in evolution, but he didn’t not believe in it either; he could only imagine that there were some inaccuracies the current explanations, but that new evidence would eventually draw myth and fact together into a story of evolution, rather than a theory.  And that story would be beautiful and logical in a way that made it obvious that someone was overseeing something intentional.  
  
There was a certain optimism to Jimmy Novak, a lonely, breathless something that was always on tiptoe waiting for that moment.  The moment when everything made sense, even the sad things or the horrible things.  
  
He didn’t know that what he was waiting for was judgment day, or that something about the shape of his soul was instinctively pulling him toward the eventual apocalypse.  
  
Jimmy met Amelia his freshman year of college and fell deeply in love with her.  He loved the smell of her hair, the way her body curled in on his when they fell asleep on the cheap sofa in his apartment, the way her voice turned low and soft when she was tired.  He felt happy just looking at her, and when she smiled, he always smiled too.  
  
As strong as his feelings for her were, there was no matching physical attraction; he appreciated the lines of her ribs and hips, and he liked how it felt when her breasts pressed against his chest when he held her, but he didn’t feel lust.  She slid his hands up under her shirt one night, cupped his hands over her breasts, and he was fascinated but unmoved.  He masked it well, kissed her and moved along with her, listening to the changes in her voice as he touched her with an almost scholarly interest.  Afterwards, he’d wondered if there was something in him that was profoundly broken, or if perhaps something had simply been switched off.  
  
Saying that he was saving himself for marriage was an easy excuse for now, but the lack of desire scared him.  He had always been told he should want something, feel something.  Some stirring in his soul or a fire in his belly, the sorts of things other guys talked about.  Most of the guys he knew would have done anything to get in a girl’s pants, and here he was fretting over whether he’d even know what to do.  
  
He tried to have faith that when the time came, he would know what to do.  That whatever was not-right would be corrected, that he would be able to make her happy and that he would be happy himself.  He didn't need any more than what they already had, but he knew that she was different.  It was another way that he didn't quite fit.  
  
It was a small wedding; both came from small families and both tended toward shy. Everyone asked what their plans were, as though they were entitled to know.  She was two years ahead of him and positioned well for a good job on graduation.  They planned for her to support them both while Jimmy finished school, but she eventually wanted to be a housewife once Jimmy was established.  Jimmy bristled when people told his wife that she was wasting a good education, but she just smiled in her sweet way and said that feminism was making her own choices rather than making the "progressive" choice by default.  
  
They wanted a family.  
  
That first night, both were too tired to think about sex.  They wrapped themselves around each other, pressed their bodies close, and talked softly about the day till they fell asleep.  He had never felt happier or more at peace than he did when her head was resting on his shoulder, baby's breath still tangled in the curls of her blond hair.  
  
Within a few days, though, the excitement and exhaustion had passed, and he knew that there were expectations of him.  He didn't want to hurt Amelia by making her think that he didn't want her, so he kissed her as he often had.  He touched her the way that he knew that men did, and she explored him with her fingers.  It felt good to be touched, though there was still no drive, no powerful attraction to her body.  The sensation and physical instinct was enough though; he clumsily made love to her.  
  
Tucked up tightly against his chest afterwards, she seemed content.  He told her again and again that she was beautiful, because she was.  He told her that he loved her, because he did.   
  
A few weeks later, while he was stripping out of his clothes for bed, he saw her watching him.  Her eyes moved over his slim, bare back and over his long legs in a thoughtful, appreciative way, as though she was calculating, appraising, and claiming what she saw for herself.  There was desire in her eyes, and he realized suddenly that he had never looked at her that way; even when he looked over her bare body, took in the way her bra shaped and lifted her breasts or the way her underwear was cut just right to show the bottom curve of her backside, he never looked at her with the intention of taking her.  Sex was never what he thought of.  
  
Her eyes met his, and she was upon him, kissing him, her hands moving over his chest and hips.  His body responded, but his mind wasn't engaged.  He almost felt like he was watching himself from the outside.  As much as he loved her, and as pleasurable as sex was, he knew that he wasn't feeling what he should.  
  
"Is it me?" she asked breathlessly afterwards, a quavering note in her voice betraying that she was afraid to ask, afraid of the answer.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Is it me?" she repeated uncertainly, "When we have sex.  Do you... Do you not..."  
  
His brain finished for her. _Want me._   
  
He felt a slow panic, realizing suddenly that he really was different, that he was wrong, and that it was obvious to the person that he loved most.  
  
"Of course I want you, Amy.  I love you."  
  
"I know you love me," she said softly, lifting herself up on one elbow to watch his face as though it would help her understand him more.  She didn't look angry, which almost made Jimmy feel worse.  
  
"I'm asking if you want me.  I can see it in your eyes that this... I feel like you're always thinking of something... maybe someone else."  
  
"No, no, I'm not.  You're the only one I-"  
  
"Are you gay?" she asked.  There was an absence of judgment in her voice that surprised him as much as the question.  
  
He wrinkled his nose slightly, shaking his head.  
  
"No."  
  
She nodded, sighing.  For some reason, that seemed to put her at ease; some of the tension eased from her shoulders, and she moved to rest against him again.  He quickly put his arms around her again and dragged her close, pressing his lips and nose into her hair like he could just breathe her in.  
  
"I just..." to his surprise, he felt ashamed to say it out loud.  Even so, she was the only person he'd ever think he could tell this to, "I just... don’t really feel anything."  
  
He hastily backpedaled, "I mean... You're beautiful and I like sex with you. Just... I mean... I never think about sex.  At all.  I never have."  
  
She pulled him closer protectively and she was silent for a thoughtful moment before she asked carefully, "Is it because of that man who stole you?"  
  
Jimmy's heart skipped.  He hadn't told her about that; the only people who knew were his parents and they didn't know the most important part, that he was rescued by an angel.  They had never talked to him about it directly, never gone to the police; they didn't want their son on television.  He went once to a child psychologist after that, but only once.  He remembered overhearing his mother talking to the doctor in the hallway, but he hadn't heard or understood enough to understand why his mother was upset.  
  
With it all running through his head now, with his wife's question, he thought for the first time about what his parents must have thought about what happened. He couldn't blame them.  Kid got kidnapped by a known, violent pedophile and turned religious immediately after.  Had few friends, rarely dated.  
  
And now Amelia knew, really knew, that he didn't feel a sexual attraction to anyone.  
  
"Oh, God," he breathed in sudden, horrified understanding.  
  
"Jimmy, it's okay.  Your mother... she told me."  
  
He could only guess at what she had said and what conclusions they had come to together about him.   
  
"That's not it though.  That’s not it, that’s not why.  Nothing happened, he let me go before anything happened.  There was..."  
  
What was he going to say?  "An angel?" He'd never told anyone about the breaking glass or the tender, roaring voice.  He knew enough even as a child to realize that he would sound crazy.  As an adult, it would sound like a story he made up to block out something horrible.  It didn’t sound rational, and only the fact that it had happened to him allowed him to believe it himself.  He didn’t know if he should tell her, but at the same time, he also knew that Amelia was the only person on earth who might believe him.  She was the only one who really deserved to know.  He lowered his voice to an almost whisper, as though he was afraid that they would be overheard.  
  
"This is going to sound crazy, but there was... there was an angel."  
  
Amelia didn't respond.  She nodded in the dark, though he could feel that she was holding her breath.  
  
He rushed on, "There was this voice, Amy, this loud, incredible voice that broke all the windows and made the guy's ears and nose bleed. He ditched me and took off, and then he got into a car accident.  Killed.  It was... it was the work of that angel."  
  
"Jimmy," she murmured, pulling him closer.    
  
And there it was; she didn't believe him.  His faith, his secret brush with the divine, remained his alone because it was too crazy to be true.  As devastated as he was to realize that his wife had the wrong idea about him, part of him was relieved not to have to share his angel, not really, whom he had always considered his own and whose interference in his life had become such a strong, secret part of who he was.    
  
He swallowed quickly, then said, "It's all right.  You don't have to believe me.  I know it sounds crazy."  
  
"If you believe it, then I believe it too.  I love you.  Okay?"  
  
He reflected on that silently, keeping her close.  She was so warm and her skin was soft and smooth.  The bare stretch of her calf against his settled his quick pulse, and her quiet voice somehow set the world to rights.  The two of them, nose to nose in the dark, was all he needed.  
  
She didn't believe him, but it wasn't important.  The past wasn't important now except in terms of the present that it had created - it brought him to the church and it brought him to Amelia.  The angel had saved him in many ways, and he needed to tuck it back into his heart and keep it for himself.  He needed to be normal.  
  
"Okay," he repeated, kissing her quickly, "I love you too."  
  
"Have you seen the angel since?"   
  
"No," he replied honestly.  
  
It was the answer that she wanted.    
  
\--------  
  
Gadreel had a new confidence about him; Allison had noticed it a few days before when the blond had slipped his arm around Sam Winchester's waist as though it was his right, as though he belonged at his side.  It was like he was finally assured that Sam wouldn’t pull away.  She didn't know what had happened, but it was impossible not to notice that something in their relationship had changed.  
  
The comfortable shift between them made Gadreel seem less tentative in all regards, and the new boldness reminded her more of Arakiel.  It made her both like him and mistrust him more, and it deepened her already developing attraction to him. She knew better than to be overt; it would be obvious and pathetic to fawn over him, particularly when she knew that she had no chance.  Particularly when he was obviously angry with her, even if he was too polite to tell her to leave him alone.  Still, her attachment to him meant that she didn’t want to endure an indefinite cold shoulder.  
  
"Are you mad at me about Arakiel?" she asked him bluntly when she found that he had lingered in the kitchen to clean up after breakfast.  
  
"I don't appreciate that you lied to me, no," he said succinctly, turning away from her to collect the plates that the other household residents had left on the counter and at the table.  There were numerous plates, bowls, frying pans, and baking sheets; it appeared that Dean was one of those guys who liked to use every dish in the kitchen.   
  
After returning the dishes to the countertop beside the sink, he turned on the water and waited for it to heat up.     
  
"I thought that perhaps we were becoming friends, but I realize now that was foolish."  
  
His direct response surprised her, and for some reason his stilted, over-formal language seemed grating.  Probably because she was being scolded.  While she knew him to be a very linear thinker, she hadn't known him to be judgmental or unkind; to the contrary, up until now, he'd seemed almost self-effacing in his search for approval.  
  
"I didn't know what to do," she answered defensively, "I didn't know if anything bad was going to happen to me if I said anything... I mean, it's really scary to just suddenly be a thousand miles from home, y'know? Alone?"  
  
He looked over his shoulder at her critically, trying to gauge whether or not she was telling the truth now.  He had learned not to blindly accept everything that people said, but lying was still new enough to him to make him pause.  He pulled a few dishes under the stream of hot water and began wiping them down with a soapy sponge.  
  
"I can understand that and, to an extent, I can relate to it.  However, it still doesn't make me trust you... nor does it make me wish to invite you to share my company."  
  
 _Is that Gadreel-language for 'fuck off?'_ she wondered, feeling an uncomfortable clenching in her tummy.  She had really screwed up, hadn't she?  He had been her one ally here and now even he was telling her to leave him alone.  
  
Fortunately for her, thanks to the blond's almost obsessive interest in recording accurate histories, his life was literally an open book to her; she had read his tight, specific writings on all of the angels, but she had given particular attention to the annotations about Arakiel, Castiel, and Gadreel himself.  She knew what his emotional triggers were, and she could guess what would make him sympathetic to her.  
  
"I'm sorry.  I mean it," she began, and it was the truth.  It was remorse for very Allison-centric reasons, betting on the wrong horse and all that, but she was sincere in her regret and in her desire for him to like her.  
  
"Look, I don’t know what to do.  I've missed like two weeks of class and I have no excuse that anyone would believe... I'm basically screwed over for this semester.  My parents prolly think I'm dead or ran off or something.  I'm just... I don't know what to do. Arakiel doesn't want me, and I'm just all alone."  
  
Gadreel sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his wet fingers as though he had a sudden headache.  
  
"I believe that the Winchesters intend to send you home to your family soon.  You will have to face them eventually."  
  
"Yeah…” she leaned back against the counter, looking away, “I am really sorry though.  What can I do to make you forgive me?”  
  
The topic of forgiveness was one that she knew was very near to the former angel’s heart.  She could see his shoulders straighten slightly and then slump.  He irritably scrubbed at the cast-iron skillet, not sure if he was fighting a scratch in the metal or a very tenacious shred of cooked-on cheese.  
  
“You lied to us all and then you called Arakiel here, knowing that his intention was to kill the Winchesters.  You would have been complicit in the murder of my lover and closest friend, had Castiel not arrived exactly when he did.”  
  
He was obviously warring with his anger and his own experience of carrying the weight of unforgiven sins.  There was a stalemate between the two opposing sides because he had become too human to look at situations in pure black and white.  As he had complained to Sam, his logic was no longer absolute; tainted by empathy and emotion, he found himself unable to set aside his anger to be magnanimous.  
  
“I didn’t… I guess I didn’t really understand what was going to happen.  It didn’t seem real.  I just wanted to go to Arakiel and to go home.”  
  
Gadreel set the skillet down hard against the inside of the porcelain sink with a surprising clang.  It was unusual for him to feel anger, and more rare for him to express it.  But given the opportunity to discuss the issue, he felt every bit of fury rising to the surface.  It took on a cool, calm metallic tang, but it showed in his eyes and the clipped, controlled quality of his voice.

"Arakiel was going to _kill_ the Winchesters.  _My family_.  Do you not understand this?"  
  
He turned off the water, then turned his body toward her.

“Are you at all sorry?  For what you would have done?  Or are you only sorry that I am angry and you are alone?  There is a difference; answer carefully.”  
  
Allison met his dark eyes briefly, then looked away.  Those were complex questions, and she was uncomfortable with the blunt reality of the murder that she would have assisted.  Where she was standing now, abandoned by Arakiel again and stuck with strangers who hated her, it was easy to see that it had been a bad choice.  The angel couldn’t possibly care about her, given how readily he would take the other vessel; she really was just a warm body, in the most literal sense of the cliche.    
  
But there was still the recollection of that distant planet, drifting on the floor of a warm ocean and sharing the view of stars that no man had ever seen.  She remembers groggily waking and feeling Arakiel within her, guiding her movements but allowing her to see and feel.  It was the first time that she had experienced anything more than fleeting instants of consciousness; it was the first time that she’d really been able to feel what it was like for them to be there together.  It was more than just power running through her veins and strengthening her slim limbs with liquid fire.  
  
She licked her lips.  
  
“Yes,” she said quietly, then continued more resolutely, “Yes.  I’m really sorry, Gadreel.  I just… I felt like I could change him or stop him or something.  I didn’t think he’d actually hurt anyone.  I told him I didn’t want him to hurt anyone using my body.  And… I don’t know.  I thought he cared about me.  I thought maybe he would stop because I asked.”  
  
Gadreel looked at her uncertainly, then asked, “Do you love him?”  
  
The question was unexpected and forced her to consider her feelings for the angel.  She didn’t know exactly how she felt; she hadn’t thought of it as love before because she couldn’t conceive of loving something that didn’t have its own body.  She loved who she was when he was inside her, and she enjoyed talking to him when he was in that other guy’s body.  But love for the angel himself was different.  Still, Gadreel seemed to soften at the idea, so she was willing to entertain the thought.  
  
“I don’t know.  Maybe.  I don’t know how I feel.”  
  
Gadreel nodded, “How… how strong is the bond between you?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Most angels keep their vessels unconscious to spare the human mind the strain… humans are very fragile. Even if an angel allows a degree of consciousness, the human mind does not have access to the angel’s.  It’s separate, discrete.  The link is one-way unless the angel decides otherwise.”  
  
“Oh… it uh, I don’t know.  I mean, I felt like we were pretty close,” she replied, not sure how to rank their closeness.    
  
“But did Arakiel share any of himself with you?”  
  
She felt her shoulders slump involuntarily at the realization that he did not; she still knew next to nothing about the angel.  He hadn’t answered her questions, nor had he given up any of his own personal history.  She knew nothing more about him than what she had read in Gadreel’s annotations in that leather-bound tome.   
  
She had told him, sitting beside him in the car in Texas as they traveled to meet Malachi - or maybe it was on the way to the Winchesters in Oklahoma - she had said that she wouldn’t let him take her again until her confided in her.  And she had stupidly forgotten, folded in on herself just at the prospect of being his again, and said ‘yes’ again without getting anything in return.  
  
“No… he can do that though?  Like just… share, like the way he reads my thoughts?  Without burning me up?”  
  
“Mmm, yes, if he was careful.”  
  
“I was usually just… sort of asleep.”  
  
“I see,” he replied, his judgment clear even with a minimum of words.  
  
“I… didn’t really know that.  I thought...” she shook her head, “It’s not important.  I was stupid… and I’m sorry.  I just… I didn’t think it would happen.  I was stupid.  Please, Gadreel.  Come on.”  
  
The blond sighed and shook his head, “I forgive you, but it doesn’t mean that I want your company at the moment.”  
  
Allison wanted to argue, but she thought that she should probably take what she could get; for some reason, Gadreel’s opinion of her mattered.  She recognized that it was probably some sort of weird psychological stand-in for Arakiel, and she should probably be trying to get as far away from both of them as possible, but there she was, begging for forgiveness in an antique kitchen in Kansas.  
  
She nodded slowly, uncertainly, then said, “Okay… maybe later, you think we could have dinner and talk or something?”  
  
Gadreel could appreciate her persistence.  He nodded, then turned back to finish doing the dishes, “Yes, that would be fine.”  
  
“Okay… see you later, I guess.”  
  
She slipped out of the kitchen while he was still saying some parting platitude.  There were a lot of things that she had to think about, a mix of past and future, and she wasn’t really looking forward to spending the time on her own; self-reflection, especially when it was less than congratulatory, was not something that she enjoyed.  
  
If she was honest with herself, she could recognize that Arakiel was benefiting more from possessing her body than she was.  She got to feel powerful through fleeting glimpses of what her body was doing without her, but it was never that she was powerful.  It was always the angel who had the power, and the angel who could decide how that power would be used.  It didn’t really care about her, not really; it was making an effort not to hurt her, but it wasn’t even trying to make a bond with her.   It could easily reach inside of her to find her secret self, but its secrets and its emotions, if it had them, were locked up tight inside its great big glowing grace.   
  
All she had gotten was a disfiguring scar on her chest.    
  
She sighed heavily, feeling a weight that she could have never understood even a few weeks ago.  Before this, her biggest stress was finals and figuring out what to do with her life.  Now she was stranded and surrounded by strangers, her parents were probably worried sick, and had probably flunked out of all of her classes because she’d already missed a month of school.    
  
At least the world was probably ending, by the sound of it.  In her youthful melodrama, there was a pleasing sort of comfort in that.  
  



	3. Chapter 3

The bodies weren't anything fantastically interesting or surprising.  The extreme chill of winter meant that they were largely undisturbed by animals and didn't suffer any of the usual breakdown that usually happened within the first 24 hours.

Sam always had a harder time with bodies than Dean, largely owing to the fact that he still thought of the cadavers as people; his brother usually shifted strangers to stage prop status once they were dead.  It took things like the carnage in Massachusetts to get much reaction out of him at all; even then, it was due more to the creativity than the biological details.

Even under worse conditions, it would have been fairly easy to determine that the aggressor had either been a werewolf or a pretty damn good copycat.  Both brothers felt a strange nostalgic twang for the more difficult hunts, those that required deeper detective work and brought along something “new.”  They were starting to feel as though they had seen everything that the great fifty states had to offer in terms of local fauna; even so, they couldn’t help but be thankful that this would remain a day trip.  

“So, ah, my guess is that it’s the girl that found the body,” Sam mused as they walked back out into the crisp cold.  He pulled his coat closer around himself; it was that damp, permeating cold that even the most devout winter enthusiasts hated.  Sam, who already disliked the snow, was more than eager to get into the still-warm Impala and crank the heat again.

“Yeah, probably,” he said, “Got her name, figure we can pay her a visit.”

As they neared the car in the lot, they were surprised to see a blond taking a picture of the Impala on her cell phone.  Dean's first reaction was defensive; he was too accustomed to people having negative motivations for everything, and he had never completely gotten over the tin-hatter conspiracy paranoia he'd picked up from Frank Devereaux.

As they neared the car, the girl jumped when she noticed them.  She was innocuously young, probably late high school, and her smile was embarrassed and disarming.

"Is this your car?  It's really cool!" she said brightly.

Dean relaxed and nodded, "Hey, yeah. Yeah."

"I took some pictures? Is that okay?  If it's not I can delete them."

"Nah, s'cool."

She looked familiar to him, but he couldn't place her.  She wore a little too much makeup, and he attributed the pang of memory to any of the dozen pop stars he saw regularly on the covers of magazines in the checkout line. 

"What kind is it?"

"It's a '67 Chevy Impala."

"It's so cool!  My boyfriend'll be bummed he missed it," she said, affecting a slightly simpering demeanor.

"Yeah, well, he'll like the pics, I'm sure.  Anyway."

"Yeah!  Not like the real thing though.  Is it new? Well, not like new-new, but like, did you just get it?  I've just never seen it around before."

"Nah, it's my dad's, had it forever.  We're just not from around here," Dean said, walking around to the passenger side, "It's pretty freaking cold out here, kid, you should get yourself inside and warm up."

She nodded, glancing back at a coffee shop on the opposite side of the street, "Yeah, I left my bag, hopefully they didn't bus my tea."

Before either of the brothers could reply, she flashed them another smile, waved them goodbye and took off back across the street.

Dean shook his head and climbed in behind the wheel.  Sam was there in a second, reaching for the heater dial as as soon as the car grumbled to life.

The younger hunter typed the address into his phone and set the GPS to map a course.  The little tracing circle appeared in the center of the screen and cycled lazily.

"There's like no reception here," Sam groused, rubbing his gloved hands together.

"Well, we're out in West Buddahfuck, what you do expect?" Dean laughed, waiting until the phone chirped out its first direction to put the car in gear.  

His green eyes reflexively skimmed the sidewalk and street.  He found his gaze drawn to the coffeeshop across the street, where the blond girl was sitting in the window.  She was watching them and didn't look away when she caught his eye for a half second in his sweep.

"That girl seem weird to you?"

"Wolfy?" Sam asked.

"I dunno.  Though no, not that.  Just weird.  Like familiar."

"Yeah, sort of.  But how many blond girls have we saved over the years?  They kinda start to blend together."

Dean backed out of the parking space, mulling over that.  It didn't really put his intuitive unease at rest though; he felt like there was something almost ostentatiously familiar about her and it actually annoyed him.  She looked like someone.

"Yeah, I guess."

 

\----

 

"Come now," Abaddon murmured, stroking a dark fingernail down the other demon's cheek.  Her deep red hair seemed like cold fire against her dead-white skin; though the lesser demon could readily perceive her true form at all times, the flashes where it came through her human vessel were unusually terrifying.

"Oh," she cooed, "You won't even feel it.  And just think of how you'll be advancing our cause..."

She was being a bit sarcastic and more than a little bit cruel.  He would certainly feel it and he definitely wouldn't care if he was helping the queen of hell; demons had no sense of commonality or unification.  It was pretty much every demon for itself.  He thrashed in the ropes, cursing the rune written in ballpoint pen on his cheek that kept him from smoking out.  

"I didn't agree to this.  You can't do this.  I refuse to give myself over to just-to just be eaten!  It has to be consensual for it to work," he said, panicked but still managing to be as sassy as any demon ever was.  He wouldn't make it easy.

"You know, that's cute.  Really, it is," she laughed, "You really think it matters if you want to be consumed or not?  Do you know how many demons it takes to make a knight of hell?  How many knights there have been?  Do you really think the demons were just  _ lining up _ for the chance?"

The demon stared, wide-eyed like a frightened horse.

Abaddon smile winsomely, elegant and evil.  It was an ancient darkness, far deeper than the demon had encountered before.  For the first time in a long time, he was afraid. Bound and warded as he was, he knew the inevitability of what was going to happen to him.

"Mr. Conrad, won't you join us?" Abaddon invited, glancing into the adjoining room.  

“Mr. Conrad” certainly wasn’t his name, but it was probably a lot less scary than whatever it actually was.  It probably ended with “devourer of souls,” since that what he seemed to be built to do.

Mr. Conrad was a study man of about six feet in height with a neck like a tree trunk and hands that could have crushed stone.  That didn't scare the demon though; physical strength was just a feature of a possessed body.  What made Mr. Conrad concerning was that his demonic form was mutated and enormous, bearing an unpleasant similarity to Abaddon's in number of limbs and teeth and heads.  He could easily see his own pieces fitting into that melange.  And looking at him, the lesser demon could see the seed of a knight of hell; he wondered how many demons this one had swallowed up already.

"The one thing I can tell you," Abaddon said rather kindly, pausing for effect, "is that it will be over quickly.  It's not a thing that...  _ lingers. _ "

She laughed, and it was haughty and loud.  There was an undercurrent of insanity that that spiraled up and up, blurring with the sound of the demon's scream as it was consumed, body and mangled soul.  

The silence following seemed almost thick, like something unpleasant had congealed on the air.

 

\---

 

Amelia got pregnant sooner than they had intended.  While they had said that they would welcome as many children as God gave them, the timing was all wrong and though neither said it, they knew they weren't ready.  Still, Jimmy was set to graduate in the spring, and they had faith that everything was happening according to plan.

Her faith had a strange reaffirmation when her prenatal examinations revealed that she had ovarian cancer - if she hadn’t gotten pregnant, they wouldn’t have known in time.  As it was, they caught it early enough that they could monitor and control the cancer’s growth. The baby was healthy, but she would be their only one; their only daughter would be born by Caesarian and they would follow the procedure with a hysterectomy.  She was a miracle, a life saving a life.

It was illegal to fire someone for disability leave, but there were enough loopholes for her employers to give Amelia's job away when the treatments left her listless and bedridden at 5 months.

Without complaint, Jimmy abandoned his degree - temporarily, they both told themselves - to take a job.  The best option for someone of his age and educational background was sales.  He started in phone sales, cold calling, and was hung up on more times than he wanted to admit.  However, when he moved to face-to-face, door-to-door sales, his natural grace and charming earnestness made him an instant success.  The money wasn't great and the hours were long, but it was enough to get by.  

He felt an uncomfortable feeling of deja-vu, of his own childhood built out of “just enough” and he tried to work harder.

"Our plans aren't God's plans," Amelia told him, though she didn't seem as sure as usual.

When he first saw Amelia, still drugged but beaming with unconditional adoration for the baby in her arms, their Claire, and for him, he immediately forgot his tired feet and his cheap collared shirt.  He thanked God, he thanked his angel.  He was blessed.

Claire grew up quickly, far more quickly than Jimmy had expected.  He remembered his parents exclaiming at how quickly he'd grown, but it had just seemed like something that all adults said.  “Time goes so fast!” “You’re getting so big!”  It had lacked meaning, the way comments about bills or carpooling had only the barest relevance to his sphere.

It seemed especially strange because he hadn't seen himself changing.  Sure, he eventually moved into an office and handled corporate level sales, and he noticed a deeper crinkle at the corner of Amy's eyes when she laughed, but it wasn't the same as getting old.  Still, there was his blond little girl, shooting up like a weed and needing new shoes every five months.  It made him feel the passage of time more keenly when he measured it by her amazing development.

He never made it back to school, but he didn't complain.  His wife packed a love note with his lunch every day and his little girl told him funny stories.  

Her versions of bible stories were his favorites, particularly when she tried to turn the fantastical bits into something more concrete that made sense to her.  Sometimes it made even less sense than parting the seas or turning water into wine, but hearing the words retold through her made God more real because he could see every moment of creation that had led up to her.

He was happy.

Work gave him intense anxiety some nights because it wasn’t the income they’d always planned for or the life that they had imagined.  He ensured that it was better than his own poor upbringing, but a steady undercurrent of “I don’t want that, not again” kept him up some nights..  He lost his job temporarily when Claire was five, and the months on bare-bones unemployment were almost more than they could wait out.  But their church community was kind, gifting them with hand-me-down clothes for Claire and many invitations to dinner.  There always seemed to be something that someone else didn't need that they could use.  They got by, and when Jimmy was invited back to his firm they knew that they had gone through something dark and come out stronger on the other side.

When Claire was nine, Jimmy took ill with an undiagnosable illness that made the Novaks fear everything from a stroke to cancer.  He slept poorly, he suffered vertigo.  Months passed with unending fatigue, migranes, stomach upset, and doubled vision.  Finally, the doctors narrowed the cause down to anxiety; though they had found their way through, Jimmy had never let go of the stress.  It was that constant “No, no, not again” that he had put on mute, constantly running through the background of his thoughts.  As a result, his anxiety had turned inward before turning outward again and manifesting itself as physical symptoms.

Treatment began with several months of sedation that knocked out the physical symptoms enough that he could regain some of the weight that he'd lost.  He worked from home when he was able, and Amy took a part time job at the grocery store around the corner to supplement their income.  From there it was a long, slow recovery through counseling and prayer.  Jimmy had many one-sided conversations with his angel, which he hadn't done in some time.  Gradually, life returned to normal and Jimmy was able to begin working again full-time.

And then one day, about a year later when the Amelia and Claire were out shopping, the television buzzed and the dishes rattled in a way that Jimmy had only heard one other time in his life.  

_ Hello, Jimmy.  It's me, Castiel. _

He almost collapsed with elation; he finally knew its name.

 

\------------

 

The werewolf hunting seemed almost too easy to be real.  It wasn't as much like a hunt as a blueprint of a hunt - perfectly clean tracks, perfect bodies, and a tidy little line of evidence that brought the Winchesters right from their original suspect to the front door or the actual werewolf.

It almost seemed too easy.

Simple questioning brought out a few crucial facts - that Theo Graham was the ex-boyfriend of the deceased, that he had no alibi, and that he had gotten a nasty dog bite about a month before that had healed up abnormally quickly.  Dean hated these journeys of self-discovery; there was nothing more awkward than being the one to tell someone that they'd essentially gotten the supernatural equivalent of a monster STD.  It was all the embarrassment of the sex talk with "by the way, you killed someone and we should probably put you down" added on like the great big rotting cherry on a shit sundae.

Dean shared a look with Sam, inviting him to dive right in to the awkward. He didn't know if he could do it.  Bad enough that the kid's parents basically named him Teddy Graham like a crappy nineties cookie.  

Sam, however, wasn't taking the bait.  His mind was also extrapolating out to problem #2: someone else had bit Theo, which meant that there was at least one other wolf in town.  He looked meaningfully at Dean.

Dean had thought about that, of course, but that didn't really negate problem #1, who was sitting right in front of them and feeling awkward about the increasingly meaningful looks passing between the two agents.

"Yeah?"

“Yeah,” Dean said, answering because Sam hadn’t.  He cleared his throat, then asked, “You notice anything different about yourself since that dog bite?  Ah, stuff like blacking out, headaches, really weirdly heightened sense of smell?”  _ Fur where there wasn’t fur before? _

Theo looked at him like he might be crazy, but as he thought back over the last month, he had to admit that those symptoms fit.  He had had a few nights where he’d fallen asleep feeling sick, nauseated and headachey.  The smell of cooking was almost overpowering, and as a result he’d cut back on cooking with spices almost entirely.  Cumin made his eyes water.  The house was also almost freakishly clean and the garbage had been emptied almost daily.

He nodded slowly.

“What’s that, like rabies?  Am I sick or something?”

_ And were people with rabies dangerous?  Did they think he’d like, started foaming at the mouth like a raccoon and gone and ripped out some hearts? _

“Ahhh… nope.  No.  This is going to sound really weird, but, ah, given the injury and the way that your ex and his girlfriend were killed… we’re, ah, actually concerned that you might be a werewolf.”

“What.”

"Yeah, man, I know.  It sounds-"

"You're... you can't be FBI agents," Theo said, getting to his feet 

 

\----

 

Amelia fretted until bedtime.  Jimmy had started talking about “the angel” again, and a few times she’d heard him talking in a low voice to it.  Given his recent mental breakdown and what she knew of his past, she could only see this as a fast track to the hospital.  It hadn’t been good for him, and it hadn’t been good for her and Claire.  Claire still sometimes seemed a bit overprotective of her father, almost to the point of anxiety herself, and Amelia just didn’t think that it should be a little girl’s job to take care of her father.

Her husband, however, had never seemed happier.  If anything, he seemed almost manic and that wasn’t good either.

And tonight… tonight was too much.  Much too much.

She closed the door to their bedroom with a quiet click, making sure that the tongue had caught and the door would stay closed.  Thoughtfully, the way that she might approach a deer, she stole up behind Jimmy and carefully slipped her arms around his waist.

As she pressed a kiss to the back of his shoulder, she asked, “How are you feeling tonight, baby?”

She’d taken to petnames more when he was sick and the habit hadn’t gone away.  To her, he still seemed a bit thin in her arms.  She pulled him closer.

He smiled though, looking over to find her reflection in the mirror behind their shared dresser.  The color in his cheeks was healthy and warm, and his brilliant blue eyes were clear.  He didn’t look tired at all.

He didn’t feel tired either.

“I’m really good, Amy.  Really good.”

“Yeah?  I’m glad…” 

“You don’t quite sound glad,” he observed, turning around in her arms and wrapping his own around her slim shoulders.

“Well… no.  Jimmy, I’ve just noticed that you seem… well, Jimmy,” she paused uncertainly, then jumped right to the heart of the matter, “Jimmy, when I came home you had your hand in a pot of boiling water because you said an angel told you to.”

“Yes!” he said brightly, beaming.  His eyes were alight with pleasure and his soft mouth was shaped into an almost incredulous smile.  He held up his unscathed hand for her to see, turning it back and forth so she could see the front, then palm, then front again.

“Jimmy… I don’t…”

She didn’t have an explanation for why they hadn’t needed to immediately rush to the hospital for treatment.  By all rights, his hand should have had at least second degree burns over the entire surface.  For a half-second, she questioned her own faith - if she believed in God, why couldn’t she believe that an angel spoke to her husband?

Was it lack of faith in God, or lack of faith in Jimmy?

Both options hurt her, so she pushed those thoughts back and focused again on her husband and her concerns about his mental condition.

“I don’t think an angel would ask you to prove yourself that way.”

“It was as much him proving himself,” he said a bit defensively, “I had no doubt that he was real, but it was an easy way to prove it.”

He did see it as an act of mutual faith; he proved his belief in Castiel and Castiel rewarded him by confirming his existence.  Part of him recognized that he was overeager to believe, and he knew that more than once he had questioned his own sanity.  But the angel’s high, clear, multitudinous voice was just what he’d remembered.

“Does he want something?” she asked, changing tack, “Why is he talking to you again now?”

_ Now when they’re in the midst of layoffs at work and our investment account is tanking.  Now when you’re stressed again, when I hear you grinding your teeth in your sleep again.  When I see you’ve checked our credit score again. _

“He said I have a greater purpose.”

“We all have a greater purpose, baby, God tells us all that.”

He looked at her thoughtfully, all of his thoughts of otherness and not-fitting washing over him at once.  She couldn’t really understand because she was a normal person.  He wasn’t.  He loved her more than anyone, anyone human at least, but he knew that there would always be this little sliver of something impossible between them.  She’d never  _ really _ understand.  He kissed her forehead placatingly.

“I know.”

“Do you think he’ll ask you to do anything else?”

It seemed like a strange question.  Most days it would be hard to say with certainty what his boss was going to ask him for that morning; trying to predict what an ageless, bodiless intelligence was going to want was obviously impossible.  And yet, he recognized that Amelia's question had a purpose, and she was taking the conversation in a specific direction. 

Downward was the direction, toward crazy.  Jimmy realized that she thought he was having a mental relapse and worse; she thought he was hearing voices that weren’t there and it scared her.  

He paused for a moment, letting his lips rest against her brow.  Finally, he shook his head, “No, I think he just wanted me to remember my faith.  I think it faltered when I was sick.”

He felt her relax.  It was what she’d wanted to hear.

Less than a week later, he would disappear from her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry to have set this series aside for so long; a lot has happened since I started writing, and a lot of unhappy things happened around when I started this fic. Then the 10th season was painful, and somehow this fic posting coincided with the actual Claire episodes and it just was bleeeeh. In any case, I have this fic mostly finished and I will be posting updates again. I will try to continue on with the Spare the Angels series... and if nothing else, I can promise you an end to this fic!
> 
> Thank you so much for your patience. Feedback is always welcome!


	4. Chapter 4

For some reason, Sam still went into hunts with a vague, indestructible sense of optimism; with the demon knife and a loaded gun, he felt as though they still had a chance to come out on top.  Sometimes he thought of an episode of the new Doctor Who, one of the episodes with the ninth Doctor - Eckleston, was it? - and some creepy children in gas masks.  He’d watched it with Amelia on Netflix when they were convincingly pretending to be normal.  The special effects were silly and the episode’s concept was farfetched even for the weirdness of the Winchester life, but it was unique in that it had a completely happy ending; Nine, whom Sam recognized had a sort of dark, PTSD angle, had jubilantly said something like “Everybody lives, this time everybody lives.”

For some reason, the line had resonated with him and he had tucked it away inside himself.  He found himself thinking of that scene sometimes when he was making salt cartridges or crouching in the dark.   _ Everybody lives. _  And sometimes, it was that time.  Everybody lived.  Other times there were casualties and Sam had to live with that instead.

This adventure was a mixed bag.  It was a textbook case, the stuff of a good movie, with just enough suspense and injury to make it interesting without worrying for the lives of either of the heroes.  They were obviously the heroes, though as he cleaned the blood off of his knife, he wasn’t sure how heroic he felt.

Dean, who was thinking similar thoughts from within a less cinematic framing, made a face at him, “I need a shower.  You mind staying the night tonight, heading out tomorrow morning?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” he replied as they trudged through the snow back to the car.

It was a good hunt, a short hunt, and he was ready to be home with Gadreel again.  He felt like he had been given a lot to think about over the last few days; though he didn’t really know where he stood on some issues, he knew it would be easier to figure them out when he was clean, dry and settled and the bunker.  

Everything seemed so much less complex when he had his arms around his angel - well, not angel, not exactly - and he craved the lack of complexity.  The ever-growing to-do list was starting to wear on him a bit again.  His brain was an unending string of “after we” alternating with “then we’ll.”  The end of the sentence was so far off that it felt like the last run-on sentence of James Joyce’s Ulysses.  He hoped it ended in “yes.”  

He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Shower, food, bed?” Dean suggested as he slid behind the wheel.

Heavy-limbed, Sam sank into the seat and tilted his head back against the rest.  He huffed out an exhausted breath, then said, “Yeah.  Y’know, yeah, I think that’s my speed.  Order in?”

“Yep,” his brother agreed with a smirk.

When they were tired as they were now, talking seemed like a waste of valuable resources.  They both knew approximately what the other was thinking, or at least what the other would likely say.  In an effort to avoid that kind of redundancy, the short ride back to the motel was quiet.  

“You heard anything from Crowley?” Sam asked.

“Nada.”

“Huh.”

“Heard anything from home?”

“I should look, huh?” Sam laughed a little, pulling his phone out of his coat pocket.  The Otterbox case had really been a good idea; the level of stress that he put on his phone, between being magically flung into walls and routinely pummeled by the supernatural, was the sort of thing that belonged in commercials and testimonials. He couldn't possibly have praised the case highly enough in his amazon.com review without it coming off as being entirely fictional.  10/10, do recommend.

“Yeah… nothing you’d care about, though.  I guess Allison’s driving Gadreel crazy and Crowley might have a lead, but they have to do a secondary spell.”

“Surprised Crowley didn’t message me.”

“Charlie has another maybe-local case,” Sam added, moving down to the next text thread.  “She thinks vamp.”

Dean groaned wearily, both on his behalf and on his brother’s.

“If we go, you wanna swing through and pick up Stockholm?”

Sam was a little surprised that Dean would offer, given both how he hated the awkwardness and how useless he thought the former angel was in a fight.  He knew better than to ask, though; his brother would either retract the offer or he would give a gruff, brush-off response that he didn’t want Sam moping.  Instead, Sam chewed on the question and tried to consider if was willing to let Gadreel join them yet on a vamp hunt.  Vamp were straight-forward, but he felt as though there were usual some sort of theatrics or complications; somehow, they always ended up with either new stitches or some psychologically uncomfortable situation.  Gadreel was a capable adult and he had the potential to be a good hunter, but Sam still had doubts.  Obviously, he couldn’t bring the former angel along just for travel company; it was definitely in for a penny, in for a pound.

He shrugged a little, “I dunno.  Seems like he’d prefer some vamps to a college kid right now.”

“But you don’t know if he’s ready to cut someone’s head off?”

“Yeah.  I mean, I’m sure he could, but I dunno.  He’s not a great hunter.”

“He’s not gonna get better if you don’t let him out,” Dean reminded him with a little smirk.

“Neeeeh,” Sam whined non-committally.

It was a natural sort of end to that conversation; neither side was too committed to the outcome at this point.  Home was still a full night’s sleep away, then a few hour’s drive.  At that point, once rested and fed with food that hadn’t come from a vending machine, they could start to think about the next hunt and who would be included.

John taught them early that they needed to be mindful of their things and that they should always know who had been in their space.  To that end, there were certain routines that the two had been trained to do to any space from which they would be coming and going.  When they returned to the hotel, Dean’s eyes swept the room to ensure that the dresser drawer was still slightly ajar and the closet door was completely open.  Satisfied that the cleaning staff had abided by the “do not disturb” sign on the door, he pulled off his coat and dropped it over a chair then sat down on the edge of the bed to pry off his boots.  

He noted that they’d seen better days and made a note to give them a good shine-up when they got home again.  Former-military John Winchester had instilled in both of his boys the importance of taking care of their clothes and shoes.  No doubt his thoughts had been on order and personal pride, but it had also served another purpose; no one would suspect two clean little boys in well-kept clothes of having been left alone in a hotel for a week to fend for themselves.  Somehow no one looked like he was living on gas station hot dogs and ramen noodles as long as the rips in his jeans were neatly mended.  Bruises never seemed like the result of anything other than roughhousing when his hair was combed.  Most likely, well-conditioned hiking boots had made someone hesitate to call child services for just long enough for them to leave town.

“Mind if I go first?” Sam asked, already walking to the bathroom.

“Yeah, s’cool,” he stretched out on his bed and said, “When you get out, figure we can order dinner in and plan tomorrow. Maybe call Cas."

Sam smiled crookedly at him from the doorway of the bathroom, and Dean hastened to add, "For his take on the situation."

"Sounds like a plan,” Sam agreed with a charming little smile that made Dean throw a boot at him.

After the door closed, Dean tipped his head back and looked up at the ceiling.  He was tired.  He felt unusually tired, actually, like his limbs were made of sandbags that were gradually being filled.  The sensation was almost pleasant; it was like falling deeply asleep in slow motion.  Still, there was something unnatural about it; his thoughts didn't normally go hazy this way.

He sat up, wanting to clear his head.  A nagging little voice said  _ No, no, just nap a few minutes.  Just till Sammy gets out of the shower. It was a long night.  It's cool. _

It seemed like a good justification, but he didn't trust it.  Sure, he could sleep anywhere, but he felt like he'd had four beers and a hit off of a joint. That wasn't normal.  He had hardly lost any blood at all.

He heard the water shut off in the bathroom, then the scrape of the curtain being pulled back.  They were familiar sounds, ones that put him at ease again.  This was fine.

In the bathroom, he heard the sound of a body slumping to the floor.  The shock of adrenaline should have given him the coordination to get up, and pretty damn fast.  He should have been up and at 'em like greased lightning. Instead, he panicked hard, tried to call for his brother, and lost consciousness.

 

\---

 

There was a time several years before when Castiel has been recalled to heaven for disobedience.  It had left a screaming void within Jimmy's mind, a space which had previously been stretched too wide to accommodate a creature far too large for it.  He felt empty and strangely heartbroken, but elation followed on the heels of that emotion.  He was alone in his skin and he could set one foot in front of the other to carry himself home.

He knew too much now and it made him uncomfortable.  It scared him.  Castiel had shielded his thoughts from him, but his eyes had seen angels and his ears had heard their conversations.  Their voices had cut him, and his dim recollections of their true faces bent his brain in ways that hurt.  Trying to remember Uriel's angelic face on the bus had given him a nosebleed.  it was all beauty and grace, but to a scale that humans were never built to comprehend.

He knew Castiel was right to try to help the Winchesters and he knew that he should be trying to take Castiel's message to Dean.  He felt bad for the angel, knowing that he was enduring a heavy punishment for his disobedience.

Still, the absence of the angel was an absence of pain.  Every moment that he had shared with Castiel had felt like being chained at the center of the sun.  Even now, sitting silently on the bus on the way home, he felt almost blistered inside.  

He hoped he was on the way home, anyway.  Amelia could have taken Claire and left.  She could have assumed that he'd lost his mind completely.  She might even think he was dead. 

As tired as he was, he was angry with his angel.  The love remained, but it was tainted with the knowledge that Castiel hadn't understood him enough to care for the people who were important to him; they'd chased the Winchesters, the new loves of Castiel's life, across the country, but they hadn't even spared a moment to tell his own family he was alive.   Maybe it was because he wasn't supposed to be.  With Castiel in the driver's seat, Jimmy had realized that the arrangement didn't have an end date; he was a rebellious angel's puppet until his body was thoroughly destroyed.

Well, **fuck that**.  Never again.  He was going home.  If the angel came a-knockin', he would tell him to fuck himself.  Fuck Castiel, fuck all the angels, and fuck the God who had arranged this whole tableau of horrors.  He'd never say yes again, and nothing would change his mind.

Except the one thing that could, did.  

Scarcely a day later he was watching his little girl, his baby, bathed in light, knowing that her tiny frame was full of angel.  Knowing that she would feel the same love burning her apart from inside, that the rapture was pain and ecstasy for eternity.

He said yes.  He begged for yes. 

And when the angel took him again, he felt different.  It was cooler, gentler.  Castiel was holding him, not crushing him.  He could feel all of the universe and everything moving and breathing out of synch, the sun rising on an unknown planet hundreds of billions of years away.  This time, though, he felt it as though he was watching it from behind glass.  His fingers didn't touch the world anymore; there were distinct borders between his soul and Castiel's grace.

It gave him an otherworldly sense of clarity.  

_ What's happening? _ he asked.

_ I learned that I was cruel.  I'm sorry, my grace was supposed to shelter your soul the way your soul shelters my grace.  I didn't know how.  Now I know.  _

_ This is forever?  _ Jimmy asked.

_ Maybe. _

_ And what about the seals and the apocalypse?  Lillith?  The Winchesters, the world? _

_ I was wrong.  Heaven was right.  I'm a fool. _

He was shielded from the full, burning nova of Castiel's heart, but he felt the echoes of his anguish.  

Over that, though, he felt an artificial purpose, a careful latticework of scars and burnished swords that gave him structure.  He had felt it the first time Cas had taken him over and he'd thought it was armor; this time, knowing what he knew now, he could feel that the angel was caged by his position as a warrior of heaven.  He wondered what new scars heaven had left on his burning body when they had forced him back into his cool facade.  What pieces had they cut off to make him fit into a role that was no longer him?

The world was ending, and neither of them could do a damn thing about it.


End file.
